


Blood Sacrifice

by allthebeautifulthings9828



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel Castiel, Angel Dean Winchester, Angelic Grace, Angst, Angst and Porn, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Castiel, BAMF Dean, BAMF Dean Winchester, BAMF Gabriel, Babies, Canon-Typical Violence, Castiel Loves Dean, Castiel and Dean in Love, Castiel in the Bunker, Castiel's True Form, Dean Loves Castiel, Depression, Domestic Castiel/Dean Winchester, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Empath Dean, Empath Dean Winchester, Exorcisms, F/M, Fighting, Fist Fights, Fluff and Angst, Gabriel Lives, Gen, Goddesses, Going to Hell, Grace Bonds, Grace Sharing, Heaven, Hell, Holy Grail, Human Castiel, Hurt Castiel, Hurt Dean, Hurt Sam Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Knights Templar, Love, M/M, Magical Artifacts, Married Castiel/Dean Winchester, Married Sam, Men of Letters Bunker, Parent Castiel, Parent Dean Winchester, Parent Sam, Parent Sam Winchester, Parents Castiel & Dean Winchester, Postpartum Depression, Protective Castiel, Protective Dean Winchester, Protective Gabriel, Protective Sam Winchester, Romance, Romantic Sam, Sex, True Forms, True Love, Trueform, Winged Castiel, Winged Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-19
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-01-05 03:06:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 17
Words: 65,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1088873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthebeautifulthings9828/pseuds/allthebeautifulthings9828
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>More than five years after fighting in the Virgin Mary's war for power, the Winchesters have settled into lives of peace and normality. Sam and Amina have just had their second baby, while Dean and Castiel raise their 8-month-old daughter, all together in the same neighborhood of Lawrence, Kansas. Castiel's increasing public notoriety comes with his charity work and Dean takes to the road less and less, instead favoring the role Bobby once played for hunters. But their quiet life comes to a screeching halt when fellow hunter, Krissy Chambers, calls with a plea for help. She's stolen a holy object before the Knights Templar could destroy it. Chased by the Templars as well as God's angels and Abaddon's demons, Dean finds his family yet again at the center of a battle between cosmic forces. Only when the new Queen of Hell kidnaps his baby, Lia Mary, and holds her hostage for the holy artifact, will he and Castiel do the one thing they swore they'd never do - become the Virgin Mary's angels to fight Hell, save the holy artifact, and save their child. (Sequel to Raven From The Ashes: http://archiveofourown.org/works/831561)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the beginning of the series, so not all of the tags make sense yet. They will fit in the coming chapters though. It's not required that you read Raven From The Ashes first either but I think it would help to get the full story.

"No, listen to me carefully, senator. You're willing to spend twenty percent of the annual national budget on the Department of Defense, but you spend less than half of that on the physical and mental well-being of American veterans."

"He’s at it again," Dean mumbled to their eight-month-old daughter balanced on his thigh.

Castiel stood and paced the hospital waiting room. "To be perfectly blunt, senator, that's not good enough. I've seen the VA's health care budget in detail," he argued, his voice growing strained with the urge to lose his temper. "Who gave you those numbers? You're telling me a boldfaced lie, senator. Of the forty-eight billion allotted to the VA health care budget, only two billion has been given to veterans seeking post-traumatic stress or traumatic brain injury treatment."

"Papa's getting riled up," he whispered to baby Lia, who giggled from behind her hot pink binky and flapped her arms excitedly. "I know, right? Papa taking charge is pretty fun."

He heard Dean, apparently, spinning on his feet and smirking around the iPhone glued to his ear. "Yes," he said after a lengthy pause. "Yes, senator. I suggest you go over the budgets again with your committee if you don't want further negative international attention focused on the increasing suicide rates among American veterans. Thank you. Goodbye." Finally, Castiel ended the call, shaking his head at his phone and muttering, "What a dick."

"Hey," cautioned Dean, "little lady's gonna start talking in a few months."

"And who taught me to call people dicks?" Castiel retorted with an arched brow as he simultaneously scrolled through his email.

A nurse with a sleek bob and bright turquoise earrings appeared in the waiting room. "Mr. Winchester?" She glanced at Castiel. "And Mr. Winchester. Come with me, please. Amina and her family are ready for visitors now."

"Great, thanks." With a smile - something Dean seemed to do a lot more in the last five years of family life - he balanced Lia on his hip, an arm looped around her waist, and followed the nurse. As they wound through hospital corridors, he snatched the ever-present iPhone out of Castiel's hands and stuffed it in his back pocket. "Family time," he said. "Your foundation can wait a few hours. You don't want to miss these things."

Offended blue eyes softened after a flare of defiance and he nodded. "You're right. I'm sorry."

"It's cool, Cas," he replied with a dismissive hand.

As a human man for a little more than five years since the war between God and the Virgin Mary, Castiel threw himself into his work with the single-minded devotion inherent to being an angel. Long hours, government gala dinners, charity functions, endless lobbying, and contributing to the media saved thousands of veteran soldiers from slipping through the cracks. Dean supported him and even donned uncomfortable tuxedos for some events, knowing it was the universe's way of showing him what it was like to love someone so obsessed with their work.

For the most part, Dean scaled back his hunter duties to that of an adviser, researcher, and director so he could be home with the baby. Fighting in the Virgin Mary's war made him lose his taste for life on the road, though he sometimes still took trips when younger hunters needed his expertise. Being forty going on forty-one, and Castiel nearly forty-four, made them a little old for weekly battles with monsters. Besides, they couldn't be so reckless now that they had a baby of their own, adopted from a teenage girl the very day she was born. Lia Mary Winchester gave her daddies a reason to keep going, to keep loving each other, and to keep loving their family.

The nurse led Dean and Castiel to a hospital room and stood aside. "Here you go," she said with a smile, "and congratulations."

"Thank you," replied Castiel, smiling back.

Dean clutched his little girl as he ventured into his room and poked his head around the bed curtain. There lay Amina cradling a brand new baby in her arms with Sam sitting beside her on the edge of the bed. He held their older child, 21-month-old Bobby, with an arm tightly gripped around his middle.

"Hey!" Sam greeted exuberantly through a bright smile.

Wasting no time, Castiel moved along the other side of the bed and kissed his sister's cheek. Cast out of Heaven for her loyalty to him, Amina embraced humanity much faster than he did. She was the missing piece to their family and Sam liked to say he got his own guardian angel after all.

"I've got another boy, Dean," said Sam, his eyes fighting back emotion.

"You're gonna have a football team in a few years at this rate," Dean teased as he hugged his brother around the shoulders, careful not to crush Lia between them.

"They said he's a little small for being full term," Amina explained, "but he'll be okay. He has Sam's nose, I think."

"Sammy was small too. Now look at him." Smirking, Dean leaned over for a good look at the tiny pink thing swaddled in a hospital blanket. "Lia, say hi to your cousin. Can you wave?" He waved at the newborn for her and she mimicked him in a matter of moments. "Good job! Hi, baby cousin..."

A little underweight, maybe, but Winchester men were stubborn and he would certainly be fine. Amina went through hell with four miscarriages to have her two boys and Dean regarded her as a mother as great as his own.

"Have you decided on a name?" asked Castiel.

Exchanging looks, Amina and Sam slowly nodded as if they weren't sure. She stroked a thin wisp of brown hair on her new baby's head and said, "We think maybe Henry Dean."

"Wait, what?" Dean asked, uncertain if he heard that right.

Sam merely smiled. A new little life, Henry Dean Winchester, named after his great-grandfather and his uncle, was born in Lawrence, Kansas that morning.

*****

Their little house even looked welcoming in the dark of night. That was a big selling point for Dean - a home without monsters or ghosts that let a lot of sunlight come in and had a great kitchen. He unlocked the door and flipped on the living room light as Castiel followed close behind carrying a sleeping Lia on his shoulder.

"Want me to put her down?" Dean asked quietly.

"I got it," murmured Castiel, rubbing her back and headed upstairs.

He smirked. "You just hate packing."

Across the hall from Lia's nursery, which Amina did in a butterfly theme for them, Dean resumed organizing the suitcases in the bedroom he shared with Castiel. Leaving for more than a day or two proved too hard for the one-time angel, so Dean suggested they travel as a family for the first time.

Another penguin suit. More speeches. Long lines of wounded veterans that needed Castiel's attention. They were headed to New York City the next day, despite Dean being petrified of flying, but keeping them together outweighed the phobia. Castiel traveled a lot but never for more than a day or two if he could help it. There were apparently a week's worth of meetings and events waiting for him in New York though. Dean's husband became a force of nature in the Democratic party in just a few years. He swelled with pride every day, of course, but he certainly never expected his life to divert down that road. Sometimes he chuckled to himself, wondering what the VA or the Department of Defense or an endless parade of congressional and senate committees would think if they knew Castiel Winchester had once been an angel of the Lord.

"She didn't even wake up when I changed her diaper," Castiel said as he came into the bedroom. He left his rectangular glasses on the dresser, a necessity that came with turning forty, and yanked his shirt over his head.

"She sleeps hard like you," commented Dean over a suitcase.

Naked arms snaked around Dean's abdomen from behind and Castiel nuzzled his neck. "I appreciate you flying with me," he murmured. "I had to tell you before I forgot. Going away for a week without you or Lia was too hard. So thank you."

"Well, we don't wanna be without you either," replied Dean, rubbing his forearm. "I ain't gonna lie though. Thinking about flying makes me sick. You might have to handle the baby for me 'til we're on the ground."

"Of course." Castiel peppered kisses along the back of his neck.

A low chuckle rose in Dean's chest. "Are you flirting with me?"

"Perhaps," he whispered.

*****

Airports were the portal of Hell. Dean knew it. He was an expert on those things. The way Castiel strolled alongside him, chattering on his pet iPhone with one hand and pushing the baby stroller with the other made Dean feel even more out of place. Vampires, skinwalkers, werewolves, vengeful ghosts, demons - nothing got him so unglued as getting on the deathtrap of an airplane.

His own cell blared in his pocket, jarring his nerves even more. Getting to it in his back pocket required juggling luggage and bending like an acrobat but he grabbed it.

"Yeah?" he said tensely.

"Hey, Dean. It's Krissy Chambers," the feminine voice greeted.

"Oh wow, talk about a blast from the past. Last time I saw you, I guess you were - what - sixteen?"

"Seventeen. I'm twenty-three now," she replied, though her tone suggested no interest in socializing. "Listen, Dean, I've got something pretty big here and I think it's way above my pay grade. With Bobby long gone and everything--"

"--What's up?" This was Dean's job. He considered himself Bobby's heir and he'd gotten pretty good at filling his shoes for other hunters over the years, along with Garth's help.

"Well, we were on a demon case. Followed the omens to Oxford--"

"--Oxford?"

Krissy paused. "England, Dean."

"I know where Oxford is, but I didn't realize American hunters followed jobs overseas. European hunters are...." He struggled to find a better term than territorial assholes, but if they walked like ducks and quacked like ducks, he wouldn't find a better description.

"Yeah, I know," she said with a sigh as if she knew what he meant. "I followed a guy out there. An English hunter. Said he's a legacy Man of Letters in the UK, which I thought was weird because we all know the Men of Letters were begun by Americans. As it turns out, he was a liar. At least about that. He fed me stories about the Men of Letters that started sounding weirdly familiar and then it hit me. He's one of the Knights Templar, not a Man of Letters. The Knights are sworn to secrecy, so he was trying to let me know he was part of something huge without spelling it out and getting in trouble."

The story definitely caught Dean's attention. He assumed she followed that guy in some young love affair but he didn't say so. Instead, he wondered, "I thought the Knights Templar were dissolved in the - what - fourteenth century, and they went underground and reformed as the Freemasons later on."

That got Castiel's attention. He cast a sharp eye at Dean and quickly ended his own phone call. They stood in line at Starbucks, though Dean barely noticed. Castiel's need for sugary, creamy coffee matched his own need for pie.

"That's what they want you to think. Most of their descendants became Freemasons much later, but the direct descendants of the Templar higher-ups kept the order's secrets and traditions alive. Just because they're officially gone doesn't mean the secrets they protected disappeared too." Rustling on Krissy's end of the line sounded like she had records in front of her. "Everything checks out. William doesn't know it but I did his genealogy and he goes straight back to the last Templar leader. He's definitely one of them."

"Okay," replied Dean with knitted brows. "Sounds like you got a pretty good handle on it. What do you need me for?"

"I stole something from the Templar headquarters over there," she blurted. "I'm hiding out ... somewhere else now. The thing ... it's huge, Dean. I mean globally huge. They were going to destroy it and I don't understand why. I think their numbers are dwindling and they'd rather destroy these things than risk ... well ..." A short, fearful burst of laughter cut into her thought. "They'd rather destroy things than risk idiots like me stealing them."

"Krissy...." Pinching the bridge of his nose, Dean suddenly felt a headache brewing. "What did you take?"

"I can't talk about it on the phone. Where are you?"

"In the Kansas City airport headed to New York with my family," he said.

"Oh...."

He rubbed his jaw, worried, and absently observed Castiel order their usual coffees. "Listen, Krissy, I'll be back in a week. You stay underground 'til then, okay?"

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, I can do that."

"Call me every day. Stay armed. Don't let ... whatever you took ... out of your sight." A thought occurred to him. "You know what, I'm gonna send you to Sammy 'til I get back. Write this down."

Dean explained where to find the bunker, which was safer than having her show up at Sam's doorstep with a stolen object from the friggin Knights Templar. He couldn't send Sam a job with a brand new baby, a toddler, and a wife recovering from childbirth. If they could stash Krissy in the bunker until Dean could get to the bottom of it, that would be the safest idea, he reasoned.

"What do you know about the Knights Templar?" he asked Castiel in a low voice once he ended the call. "I saw your face."

"I know they're everywhere," Castiel replied equally as low. They sat down together at the gate and he plucked Lia out of her stroller to let her wriggle and play before the restrictive flight. "There are far more of them than most people might expect. Nobody knows it because secret orders are secret for rather important reasons. They had angelic protection in the beginning but they lost it when theft, greed, ambition, and corruption spread like diseases. Without our protection, the French king ... which one was it ... Philip, I think. Anyway, the King at the time ordered the arrests of Templar leaders. It was all very complicated and murky."

Nodding, Dean couldn't say he was surprised. "And now?"

"Templars want people to think they're gone but they're not. They're not Freemasons either but both orders find it beneficial to have such rumors in circulation. It cloaks both of them in further mystery," he explained as he held Lia, letting her stand and bounce on his lap.

Castiel's concern deepened the aging in his face. The salt and pepper hair around his temples and glasses balanced on his nose made him look like a scholar. In a suit, he looked like a politician. But at the end of the day, his millions of years of angelic history could not be untangled from that human life. Sometimes Dean still thought he saw his grace shining through his bright blue eyes. Once in a while, he truly missed being the only person in the universe allowed to see his raven wings and silver halo.

"What did Krissy do?" Castiel asked.

"She took something from Oxford. I don't know what. She's nervous about talking on the phone," replied Dean.

"Oxford?" Lia drooped in Castiel's hands as his eyes shot to Dean.

"Yeah, why?"

He sighed. "This is bad. She took something of the holy family."


	2. Chapter 2

Being a daddy to an eight-month-old baby girl taught Dean a lot of useful things, like bumping open the door to their hotel suite with his butt and pulling the stroller through it. Baby Lia needed a diaper change badly. The dainty little girl certainly had a gift for turning her diapers into explosive bombs.

"Hello, Dean," greeted Castiel.

"Oh," Dean said, seeing his husband seated on a sofa with a woman dressed in a business suit perched in an armchair nearby, "I thought you were done by two." He glanced at his watch.

"We’re running a little late." Standing, Castiel unconsciously smoothed down his tie. "Dean, this is Cathy Briggs from the New York Times. And Ms. Briggs, this is my husband, Dean, and our daughter over there, Lia," added Castiel, the very picture of decorum. He’d gotten quite good at mimicking human manners since his charity foundation became such a public entity. One of his greatest fears was being found out as not quite right because he’d once been an angel. So he watched, he studied, and he practiced until his social skills were as smooth as the upper class.

"Hi, how’s it going?" Great. Awkwardly, Dean crossed the rug and shook her hand, feeling so far beyond out of place among business suits, proper manners, in an expensive hotel suite while he wore torn jeans, old sneakers, and a flannel shirt over a t-shirt.

"I’m quite well, thank you, Mr. Winchester. It’s a pleasure to meet you." The reporter smiled through perfectly lined lips, berry colored, and even her earrings screamed high-maintenance to Dean.

He gave her a polite nod and smile, but he found himself actually grateful for a poopy diaper. “Well, I’ll let you finish up your interview,” he told them both as he pushed Lia’s stroller around the corner into the suite’s adjoining bedroom and bathroom.

A pair of French doors covered with sheer drapes shut Dean and Lia in the other room, though he was curious about those interviews reporters sought, so he left the door cracked. Lia squirmed and giggled as Dean flopped her on the biggest bed he’d ever seen in his life. The real struggle was changing an explosive poopy bomb without ruining perfect white linens that he didn’t even own. He really didn’t understand how rich people managed to have kids.

"Well, where were we, Mr. Winchester?" he heard the reporter lady ask in the other room.

"You were about to ask about my church." Castiel’s voice dripped with polite sarcasm. Yeah, Dean knew that tone all too well.

"Oh, yes," she said obliviously. "Your conservative critics like Republican Senator Ashford have said your religious choices are no different than paganism and upstanding American people should turn a cold shoulder to your foundation. He alleges that you don’t reflect American values."

Protective urges flared in Dean as he listened, simultaneously struggling to keep Lia from rolling off the towel. They knew that senator quite well. He often lashed out at anyone with even a mild liberal attitude and Heaven forbid anyone do charity work for the American military without being a card carrying member of the Republican party. That man represented everything Dean loathed about politics but he and Castiel knew such work demanded playing nice with political louses.

"I hardly think my family’s religious preferences bear any weight on my ability to support our country’s combat veterans and advocate for their needs in government," Castiel replied, his diplomatic response barely concealing his irritation with being questioned about his nemesis yet again. "The Catholic Church offers up prayers to the Holy Mother as well. My family and I simply feel her teachings resonate with our lives more than the current states of traditional Christian or Catholic organizations. In fact, the Church of the Goddess Mary has been recognized officially by our own government as another denomination of Christianity and it’s the fastest growing church in the nation. Our church recognizes the divinity of the female component of the holy family. This is not immoral, nor does it encourage illegal or harmful behavior."

"Is it true that your husband built the First Church of the Goddess Mary in Lawrence, Kansas?" she probed further.

"He did, yes," replied Castiel without hesitation. "So did my brother-in-law and many other people in our community. Our church also contributes thousands of dollars annually to my foundation."

"I see," she said in an impartial tone. "And how do you respond to Senator Ashford’s allegations that your same-sex relationship isn’t a legal marriage?"

A low chuckle from Castiel told Dean he was losing patience with the reporter’s line of questioning. He straightened Lia’s dress and climbed on the bed with her. Leaning back on the headboard, he laid her over his stomach and chest with hopes that she’d go down for a nap.

"It sounds like Senator Asford believes I have plans to run for office and perhaps take his seat in the senate," alleged Castiel. A bit of sass turned up the corners of his words, suggesting his amusement with that man’s obsession with him.

"Are you planning a run for office, Mr. Winchester?"

"No. Absolutely not. I prefer to maintain my integrity and focus on both my foundation and my family." Movement in the other room sounded like Castiel adjusted his position on the sofa. "Listen, Ms. Briggs. I’ve long since gotten used to taking shots from people like Senator Ashford because my church goes against patriarchal ideas deeply ingrained in this country, and because my spouse is a man. Yes, we’re legally married. We took our vows in Illinois because it’s not yet legal in our home state of Kansas. Nearly half the country is made of families just like ours. I didn’t seek fame when I started my foundation but I bear it because my face brings in resources and donations that our retired and serving military needs. My religion, my husband, and my daughter are irrelevant to discussion about the foundation, excluding the idea that I’m trying to help a neglected portion of the country enjoy a loving family life like ours. I doubt even Senator Ashford could call that immoral without grasping at antiquated conservative straws."

Silently, Dean smirked and threw his first in the air even though no one saw him except the baby. Castiel made him proud.

*****

"I didn’t see it, no. She’s a little imbalanced about the damn thing."

"But it’s in the bunker, whatever it is?"

"Yep. Stashed away in a monster-proof room."

A relieved nod answered Sam but he couldn’t see it through the phone. Dean tugged on the bowtie choking him around the throat. He peered through the glass ballroom doors from outside on the balcony and smiled at the way Castiel wandered around talking to soldiers, politicians, and a myriad of other people Dean didn’t know. Even in his busiest work days, he still made time for Lia, as he did that night carrying her around so proudly. She wore a white satin dress with a pink sash around her waist, opaque white tights, and little patent leather shoes. Their baby looked like a doll and she quickly became the star of the fundraising dinner.

"How’s Cas?" asked Sam.

"Schmoozing. Getting tired. Three days in this city’s about all we can take but he’s still got a few days to go."

"He should’ve been an actor. Nobody even guesses he hates crowds and small talk as much as you do," Sam replied, a baby grunting in the background. "Wait, tonight’s that gala thing, right? You’re in a tux right now, you James Bond son of a bitch."

"Shut your cake hole," Dean laughed.

"Mina wants a picture of Lia in her little dress."

"Okay, I’ll text it. I gotta go. Cas is about to make his speech. I’m gonna record it if Lia won’t squirm too much," said Dean, knowing Amina would want to see everything. "Look, keep an eye on Krissy. Cas seems to think what she took is a big deal. Soon as we get back, we’ll take care of it. Mina needs more help with the new kid than we do."

Sam chuckled. “You’re so domesticated.”

"Shut up," grumbled Dean with an eye roll.

*****

Home never felt so good for any of them. Even Lia teared up after a difficult flight of tears and binkies thrown into the airplane aisle. As soon as they walked into the house, Castiel promptly announced that he was exhausted after a week of handshaking, speeches, interviews, and socializing for exposure and donations. The New York Times article ran the day after the black-tie gala to positive feedback for his blunt way of handling criticism. Ultraconservatives might not have liked him from the beginning but soldiers loved him dearly, as did their families. That, he said, was what mattered.

Castiel retreated upstairs for a long, quiet nap with little Lia. His favorite thing to do was snuggled his baby in the quiet protection of home, certainly because he didn't get to do that as much as he wanted.

Dean trotted downstairs to his basement office, eager to immerse himself in his man cave for a while. Nearly everything he managed to rescue from Bobby's house after it burned made its way into his office, making him feel like the old man was still with him to some degree. He didn't dare borrow research materials or furniture from the bunker should anything ever happened to his house, but many of the copies of lore books Bobby made in his life now occupied shelves.

The desk also resembled the one in Bobby's living room, but Dean knew important it was to be his own man as well. Mimicking his father for so long only lead to years of denying who he was as a man and he knew better than to make those mistakes by trying to emulate Bobby as his second hero also. Despite the homages to Bobby and his father in that office, much of its design came from his own mind. There was even room for a foosball table.

He popped the beer from the little refrigerator he kept for his own stash of snacks and drinks, and set to work catching up on the other hunters out there. A map of North America hung on the wall to the left of his desk where he could always see it and a set of color-coded tacks marked the locations of every hunter in the United States and Canada. He designed the system himself in an effort to keep track of everyone because of how many hunters simply went missing and never came back when he was a child. Nobody looked after everyone as a whole. Bobby did his best but he never thought of a system like that one. So Dean listened to the voicemail inbox set up for just that purpose. The majority of hunters agreed to check in each time they moved on to a new location for a new case, though almost none of them ever said what they were really doing or what they were hunting. That was fine. He just wanted to know where they were. And if they couldn't point out their locations for safety reasons, they left a coded message and a different color tack for their last known location.

No hunters were going to be lost on his watch.

At least nothing emergent needed his immediate attention in those messages. He needed to focus on whatever Krissy stole from the Knights Templar. It was too late to go over to the bunker and check on her now. Knowing Sam had been looking after her while he was gone made it easier for him to catch some sleep that night and head over first thing in the morning. In the meantime, he sat at his desk and took notes on everything he could find about the Knights Templar, getting lost in research until he's no longer have a sense of time.

Only when Castiel came downstairs and leaned over his desk, casting a long shadow over the book and notebook, did he realize how late it was. He continued writing and finishing this thought before it left him.

"What are you doing?"

"Writing down everything I can find about the Knights Templar," Dean replied without looking up.

Castiel tapped the book under his fingertip. "You know most of this is probably wrong."

"I know. I'm writing down everything that seems important and then you're gonna tell me what's right and what's wrong tomorrow." It seemed reasonable enough. "Where's the baby?"

"Living room floor playing with those little people farm toys. And by playing, I mean gnawing and drooling all over the animals," Castiel said with an amused half smile.

"Gated?"

"Of course," he assured. "You know, everyone thought I was going to be the overprotective parent in this family."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Dean chuckled with a dismissive hand waving him away.

"Are you going to take a break soon? You really don't want me to cook dinner. If you have a craving for burned pasta noodles again, then go right ahead, let me cook, but I personally didn't enjoy that very much."

He didn't really feel like cooking either. "What about Chinese?"

That made him happy. A smile burst across his face. "I can do that. Ordering food is in my extensive repertoire as a human man. I'll even do you one better. I can pop open a wine bottle. Chinese and wine sounds quite appetizing tonight."

"Look out, Martha Stewart!"

Laughter followed Castiel back up the basement staircase. "There's no need to be jealous of my domestic prowess, Dean!"

"Hey, can you watch Lia tomorrow? I gotta get a jump on this Templar thing before they come sniffing around the bunker looking for Krissy," said Dean as he slammed the book shut and followed Castiel upstairs.

The former angel nodded. "I already planned to take a few days off. I'm exhausted. Staying home with the baby sounds like a vacation."

"Sucks being an old man, huh?" Smirking, Dean poked the softness around Castiel's waistline.

"Old is an understatement for me, love." Castiel smirked into the kitchen drawer, searching for the Chinese takeout menu.


	3. Chapter 3

Dean barely took two or three steps into the bunker before a wall of water nearly knocked him backwards through the doorway. He grabbed the doorframe, sputtering and choking until he regained his senses.

"The hell was that?" he growled.

"Sorry," said Krissy as she appeared from around the corner armed with a jug of holy water. "Can’t be too careful."

"Well, why didn’t you drown him?" Dean hooked a thumb toward his cackling brother.

Dark brows furrowed, Krissy put down the jug and sheathed a dagger back into her belt. “Sam’s been coming every day. I already tested him. Now are you gonna say hi the right way or what?” She didn’t even give him a chance to respond before her arms grabbed him around the shoulders in a rough embrace. Then she abruptly pulled away and slammed her fist into his gut. “That’s for not calling me once in the last six years, you dick!”

"Ow! Son of a bitch!" howled Dean, slumped over and grabbing his tender abdomen.

She threw her hands up, exasperated. "Yeah, well, you deserve it!" A long moment passed as she let him marinate in the pain, and then she softened and patted his shoulder. "There. We're square now."

"Good to know you haven’t lost your attitude," Dean replied.

Sam’s body flung backwards with laughter as he clapped his hands gleefully. He’d probably gotten the same greeting and couldn’t wait for Dean to experience it too.

Turning back to the library, Krissy’s dark ponytail streamed down her back as she resumed assembling a shotgun. “Don’t you guys ever clean your weapons?”

"We don’t use those much. We stay armed with our own all the time," replied Dean. His gut still hurt but he sure as hell wasn’t going to admit it. At least it appeared that she knew how to defend herself as skillfully as any male hunter and he didn’t have to worry so much. "Why are we here? Why are you here? Can we see whatever you took from Oxford?"

She said nothing. Flat out ignored them.

Then Sam attempted it. “Krissy—”

"—I heard you got yourself a husband and a baby, Dean," she spoke over Sam, her back turned. "That sure explains a lot. Am I gonna meet them?"

Why did everyone always react to his marriage like they knew it was going to happen all along? He didn’t get it. That wasn’t the point though and he pushed it aside. He descended the library steps and motioned for Sam to follow. They surrounded her slowly, leaving no room for her to bolt in fear. His brother put a hand on her shoulder, both of them knowing exactly how terrified she must have been.

"You gotta show us if we’re gonna be able to protect you," said Dean.

"We can’t protect you if we don’t have all the facts," Sam added in a gentler tone. "Nothing can get in here. Not even angels or demons. No monsters. Nothing. This is the safest place for you to be if you’re hiding something."

A deep sigh trembled through Krissy and she eventually nodded. Abandoning the half-assembled shotgun, she gave a quick wave for the brothers to follow her. Each of them wound their way down to the basement storage rooms. Dean realized she certainly wasn't a teenage girl anymore as she walked with the gait and the wisdom inherent to women. It was definitely strange to see her after six years – completely grown, independent, and leading her own life as a hunter, apparently without others to back her up.

Downstairs, behind dusty old boxes where Amina had once gone investigating as a new human years before, Krissy hid her treasure. She crawled behind a trunk in the demon dungeon and produced a much smaller wooden chest. Flashbacks came to Dean’s mind about the chest containing vials of angelic grace that had been entrusted with him during the Virgin Mary’s war. He knew immediately that Castiel had been right. Krissy stole something belonging to the holy family.

She knelt, using the bigger chest on the floor as a table. Both Dean and Sam crouched around her as she pried open the ancient stone chest. Inside, purple velvet bedding cradled a glass bottle of thick brownish-red liquid. The bottle’s length spanned from her fingertips to her wrist as she held it in the palm of her hand for the brothers to examine.

"Far as I can tell, it's the blood of Jesus," she said, both fear and reverence cushioning her words. "I got a few other things. Scrolls in a language I can't read. My best guess is everything's about Jesus though. Only something that big would attract the Templars' attention."

*****

"What the hell?" _  
_

"I dunno, Dean."

"No, seriously, what the  _hell_?"

"Dean, I don't  _know_!"

The older brother scrubbed a hand down his face as he steered the Impala with the other hand. "Did we really just see the blood of Jesus fucking Christ?" He started to panic just thinking of the world plunging into new crusades over it.

"I'm thinking maybe you shouldn't say 'fucking' in Christ's name if, you know, we have his  _blood_. The big wigs upstairs might get a little pissy about that," urged Sam from the passenger seat.

Dean let out a strained sigh and fell into contemplative quiet. He was getting too damn old for that shit. Krissy was just getting into her groove as a hunter at her age, and sure, she clearly screwed up big time but he couldn't exactly pass judgment. Who he was in his early twenties probably would have done the same thing so recklessly and without thinking if he knew the Knights Templar were going to destroy it.

"We gotta figure out why," Dean said, continuing his thoughts aloud.

"Why what?"

"Why the Templars were gonna destroy the blood. It's the reason Krissy swiped it in the first place." A plan formulated in his mind and, strangely, it felt like old times. "Is Amina coming to church tomorrow?"

Sam chortled at the question. "She wouldn't miss another Sunday even if Henry's only ten days old. I'm sure she'll be there."

Nodding, Dean expected as much. "All right, I think we should all head to the bunker after church and get started on all this mess. Just bring the kids and everything. Seems a whole lot easier than getting sitters. We don't know how long we'll be there anyway, you know? Cas and Amina are our best leads right now. They might be able to translate the scrolls."

"And what are we doing with the blood once we do that?" Sam asked, his brow arched skeptically.

Dean shrugged. "I dunno yet."

"Okay," he chuckled, "just like the old days. Huge problem, we might break the world again, but eh, no big deal."

"Just another day at the office." Dean's smirk grew into a cocky smile.

*****

Sundays for the Winchester family never involved church before the Righteous Man fought for the Virgin Mary's throne as a goddess in her own right. She stood for free will and won her faithful masses through real work to make the world better, not just fear and intimidation. No one in the First Church of the Goddess Mary in Lawrence knew the  _actual_ Righteous Man was among their congregation but that didn't stop Dean from averting his eyes whenever stories of the great war were told.

Ancient writings were found in the caves around Nazareth just five years before, immediately after her throne was secured, and those writings threw the entire Christian world on its ear. Pope Benedict declared the fragile, crumbled materials fraudulent rather than greet them with a willingness to give women more power in the Catholic Church. Dean watched news reports begin trickling in from his living room every morning concerning miracles attributed to Mary. A slow progression of Catholics began leaving their parishes and setting up new parishes in Mary's name. Within a year, the new sect of Christendom grew so fast that new churches sprang up all over the world.

Matters of faith were never easy for Dean. For most of his life, he rejected anything that he couldn't see and experience for himself, but Mary never abandoned him during the war. She restored Castiel to him when the angel was killed. She was the reason he loved and lived with his family every day. Faith bloomed in his chest through his soul, not because it was forced on him, but because she never demanded anything he wasn't willing to give.

Dean Winchester never missed a Sunday at church if he could help it. In fact, the Winchester family had their own table, five back from the altar covered in seasonal flowers.

Yes, tables. That was the thing about the Church of the Goddess Mary. There were no stiff, uncomfortable pews where people sat, stood, and kneeled in choreographed worship. A central theme running through what was then known as the Gospels of Mother Mary depicted repeated scenes of faith and stories discussed as families and faithful broke bread together. Every Sunday in Mary's churches all over the world, pews were replaced by two or three rows of long banquet tables with an elevated altar at the head of the holy building. People feasted on things that each family brought as the minister told stories from Mary's life according to her gospels.

Dean knew he found his home when the new church designs were built around eating together. It meant even more when he realized some of the poorer families in each congregation would never eat that well for the remainder of the week. But everyone worked together in those churches and he found himself enjoying the sense of community. He really enjoyed people oohing and aahing over the roasts or the turkeys he brought every week. Faith through food was the way to go.

Throughout the service and the meal that Sunday, their family table was never short of well-wishers and congratulations. Amina held her newborn son in a baby sling around her body, freeing her hands to enjoy the feast. She still wore maternity dresses but she looked remarkable good for going through natural childbirth only a week and a half before. Of course, she sat down most of the time, but Dean didn't blame her.

"I shouldn't be here," Krissy whispered beside him. "I shouldn't  _leave things alone_ in the  _house_."

With a conversational smile, Dean patted her hand. "It's okay. The  _house is locked_ and we  _set the alarms_. Nothing to worry about. Eat. You're not gonna taste a better ham than mine."

"When did you get so domesticated?" she asked as she forked a bite into her mouth.

The same question popped up over and over again since he married that man across the table, who sat between Amina and Sam. Their older boy, Bobby, sat in his lap waiting rather impatiently for bites off a plate they shared. Beyond Castiel, several tables ahead, their parish minister, a lady by the name of Pamela Santee, read a story from the Gospel of Mary. Everyone listened even while they feasted. Lia wriggled in his own lap, highly interested in his plate.

"Hi, Dean!"

A familiar female voice interrupted his thoughts and he twisted in his chair, recognizing Amanda from the bank. Her sleek, dark ponytail and black framed cateye glasses gave her a high-maintenance impression that she didn't necessarily deserve. She knelt and kept her voice low as to not disturb the reading at the altar.

"Didn't expect to see the whole family here today," she said. "I figured Amina would still be recovering. Look how sweet he is."

"She's tough," replied Dean.

Amanda's attention turned to Krissy. "And who is this?"

"Friend of the family - Krissy Chambers," he introduced. "This is Amanda Howell. She's the bank manager down the road."

"Hi," Krissy greeted with that walled up reserve only inherent to hunters.

"Nice to meet you, Krissy," said Amanda with a nod. The baby in Dean's lap attracted her attention and her smile brought a friendlier shade to her face as she took Lia's hand. "Don't you look pretty in your flowery yellow dress? Such a scrumptious little baby." Her eyes narrowed just slightly with those words, but she stood before Dean even thought about it. "Well, I won't keep you any longer. Have a good Sunday."

"See ya later, Amanda," he said.

Once she strolled on down the table, Krissy gave Dean such a cool side-eye that he wondered what he did wrong. "She's creepy as hell," she told him discreetly.

"Amanda?" he whispered, confused. "Nah. We've known her for years."

Krissy shook her head. "You've been playing house too long, Dean. You're slipping. That woman's creepy and I wouldn't let her too close to my kids without putting her through all the tests."


	4. Chapter 4

"I haven't been here in a couple of years. Wow is it dusty," said Amina, rubbing the little baby swaddled in the sling against her chest. "Krissy must feel like she's living in a pigpen, guys. Honestly."

"I've stayed in worse places. I'm a hunter," Krissy replied as she followed Amina down the curved stairwell leading to the bunker's main floor. She carried Bobby on her hip, the toddler having decided she was already his favorite new friend.

Behind the women, Sam and Dean descended the stairwell with shopping bags of leftover church food. Castiel came along last, quietly talking to Lia in Enochian. Dean still couldn't speak the language very well but Castiel had a desire for his child to grow up bilingual. It would only give her a jumpstart in life, both so painfully aware that she probably couldn't escape the hunter world. At the very least, she would be the new generation of the Men of Letters.

Krissy let down Bobby, who toddled to the nearest bookshelf. That boy left little doubt of who his father was with habits like playing with books before he could read.

"So are you, uh, totally human?" she asked, glancing at both Castiel and Amina. "I mean, you got any of that angel stuff left?"

"We're completely human now but we still carry a great deal of angelic knowledge," Castiel explained.

Nodding at her brother, Amina added, "Our graces still exist. My husband wears mine around his neck while Dean and Cas prefer to hide theirs. I don't even know where they keep them. Grace is a highly private matter to any angel."

"Oh. I guess it would've been helpful to have a couple of angels protecting the stuff I took from the Templars. Wait--" Blinking oddly, Krissy turned her attention to Dean as if something dawned on her. "Graces? You guys have the power of more than one angel? Like what, your little girl?"

"No," Dean said with a self-conscious hand raked through his hair. "I kinda, uh, have grace too. Mother Mary created grace for me years ago. Never gonna use it but the option is there, I guess." He cleared his throat and stalked into the library. "So where you got these scrolls stashed? Let's get started on translating. We gotta know what we're up against here--why they want 'em destroyed."

Relieving for him, Krissy didn't ask any more questions about why Dean had grace stashed away somewhere. He hadn't thought about it in years until Amina mentioned it because it simply wasn't something he wanted in the first place. Castiel was human. They had their child and their home. That sense of stability and contentment was far more exotic and addicting to him than the power of a celestial being.

Krissy disappeared into the interior of the bunker and Sam carted the leftover food into the industrial kitchen. Amina and Castiel naturally moved together as siblings who had been together their whole lives would, settling across from each other at one of the library tables. They all waited for the artifacts in a tense atmosphere only interrupted by Bobby and Lia playing with old books on the floor nearby.

Sam returned before Krissy did and, though Dean didn't like to admit it, he wondered if she somehow bolted. But that was ridiculous. She couldn't get out without being heard and why would she? She was the one who came to them for protection.

"Feels like old times," Amina said to Castiel across from her.

He offered a casual smile. "It'll be interesting to see how much we remember. I was trying to talk to myself in Aramaic in the shower this morning. I remember more than I expected with a limited human brain."

"Aramaic isn't something you just forget easily," she said in a conversational tone.

"I resent that limited human brain remark, Cas," teased Sam. "We did save the world a few times, you know."

"We broke it a few times too," he added.

Krissy shuffled up from the bowels of the bunker with a wide, battered cardboard box in her arms. Her back bowed back with the weight of her loot. The box heaved into the end of the table and not one of them quite knew how to react. Dean thought she stole a couple of things, not an entire box of artifacts. He stiffened as Castiel and Amina straightened in their chairs, expressions filled with reverence.

Sam leaped to her aid and they slid the box across the table, where she dug through its contents. The chest emerged first.

"You guys already saw this," she said as she searched for other things.

"I haven't," Amina insisted.

The former angel reached for the chest but Krissy's protective glare and the way she retracted it against her stomach made Amina back off. She blinked, melting off that glare with the internal realization playing out on her features that she could very well make enemies of her friends if she wasn't careful.

"Krissy," Dean implored in the gentlest voice he could. "Mina's gotta see the stuff. She used to be Heaven's archivist."

"Sorry," replied Krissy quietly. Slowly, she let herself hand it over. "I'm a little jumpy still."

"It's all right. I understand," Amina assured, nodding.

Sam's enormous hand nearly covered Krissy's entire upper back as he used that tone of his, explaining in better detail all of Amina's duties in Heaven's archives. She knew how to handle objects whose value could not be measured and Krissy nodded, visibly relaxing and put at ease with his assurances. Dean observed silently and remembered just how friggin good Sam was at that part of the job. He always knew how to put the most hysterical or the most distrustful witnesses at ease.

The calm and concentration that fell over Amina as she examined symbols carved into the chest seemed quite unlike who she became as a human woman. Dean's attention shifted to her, realizing that it was as close as he'd ever get to witnessing what she was like as an angel. Quiet, observant, scholarly, and highly skilled with her duties. In some abstract way, she resembled the way she looked performing her job as an emergency room nurse in Kansas City. At least she was on maternity leave and had time to lend her expertise.

"Honey, take the baby, please," she said to Sam as she removed Henry from the sling around her chest and held him across the table.

"Got him," Sam replied, tucking the newborn into his elbow like a football.

Amina continued her thorough examination just like a human archivist in any other museum. She avoided touching as much of it as possible but cradled the pointed vial of blood in her palm to have a better look at tiny symbols carved in the gold rim. Little details Dean hadn't noticed seemed to matter to her.

"I've seen this before," she finally decided aloud. "It used to be housed in my department--the special collections of Heaven's archives."

"Is it the blood of Christ?" asked Krissy as she laid out other items.

Nodding, Amina put it back into the velvet-lined chest. "We had it until 1935. There was a man who sold his soul for the blood of Christ and--Wait, do you have a spear?"

"You mean this?" Krissy flipped a spear with a bladed iron end and a splintered wooden shaft.

"That'd be the one." With a sigh, Amina shook her head. "A man sold his soul for the blood and the spear because of a legend that said anyone in possession of those items would thus be in possession of all the world's power. Of course, the legend wasn't true but he managed to get the interest of the last remaining Knight of Hell. I nearly lost my position when these things turned up missing but an angel above me was found guilty and cast out instead. That man took the legend to heart and became increasingly fanatical the less likely it appeared that his worldwide power would come to fruition. That same Knight of Hell harvested his soul in 1945 and all of Hell considered it a victory even though they lost possession of these things."

A sinking sensation disoriented Dean and he scrubbed a hand down his face. "We talking about Hitler here?"

"Adolf Hitler, yes," Castiel replied. "One of the angels in my old garrison was sent to try and repair his soul in... I believe it was 1917. Occasionally humans are born with broken souls, like products sometimes come out of factories with defects. It doesn't happen often but he was one of them. Heaven tried numerous times to repair the damage but Hell won that one."

"We'd heard the French found these things after the war but we never found them after that," added Amina as she ran her fingertips over the splintered end of the spear. "This should be taller than Sam but it looks like it got cracked in half along the way."

It seemed Dean took the news better than any of them, not that he was happy about it. He simply knew better than to get hung up on regret and what could have been when working a case. Instinct prompted him to keep going, to understand everything Krissy stole. He then grabbed a pile of ancient scrolls, each pressed between pieces of plexiglass from what he could tell. Discolored, wrinkled, and ripped in places, the scrolls resembled stolen museum display pieces that needed little plaques that warned against flash photography and offered insight into the missing bits of text.

"Translate these," he said. The scrolls were about four feet long each and he stacked them in front of Amina and Castiel.

The two angels spoke among themselves in Enochian as they carded through the plexiglass selections. Dean rounded Krissy, joining her over the table and lightly casting a hand over her back. He suspected the day overwhelmed her but the Winchesters were accustomed to remaining detached when they came across holy or cursed objects.

"This looks like a relic," Sam said to Dean over the box. He angled a frame containing ancient linen with dried flowers that probably didn't even exist anymore. "Could be fake. A lot of churches used fake relics to pull in crowds."

"It's got French writing at the bottom of the frame," Krissy said. "I can't read it though."

Disturbed commotion at Castiel's end of the table lifted their attention from the oddly framed French relic. The former angel's brows knitted together and he shook his head just as Amina vehemently nodded as if he should have known better. They debated back and forth in that lyrical language of theirs. Castiel tapped his finger on the plexiglass and made a rather blunt point, while Amina grabbed another piece of plexiglass and made her own point.

"This should never have reached Earth!" Castiel finally boomed in sharp English.

Amina stood her ground against her brother. "It didn't happen on my watch, Cas!"

"I know!" he growled.

"Then why are you yelling at me?" she shouted back.

"Because it's a failure and I can't tolerate failure!"

"Well, get over it! It happened!"

"Guys?" blurted Dean, brow arched at the scene.

The angelic siblings whipped around simultaneously like children busted getting into trouble together. They glanced at each other and back at Dean, the realization of their open squabbling settling on them. It was, in fact, one of the rare times when they behaved like actual human brothers and sisters. Under different circumstances, it might have been amusing.

"What's with the fighting?" pressed Dean.

"These scrolls were never meant to fall into human hands, by God's orders," said Amina, tapping one of them with her fingernail.

Castiel continues seamlessly, "But they did, which points to a major breach of security in the special collections department."

"Not on my watch," she reiterated in a lowered tone.

"I know that," he reiterated back.

"Guys! Guys!" barked Dean before they set off into the same squabble again. "Nobody's blaming anybody here. Fact is these scrolls probably got swiped a couple hundred years ago if they go with this flowery framed thing. It didn't happen on any of our watches."

The French relic caught Amina's eye and she drifted closer to it gripped in Sam's free hand. "I told you the scrolls were authentic," she touted over her shoulder at Castiel. "This is proof right here. We've got the untold story."

"The untold story of what?" asked Sam, peering down at his wife.

"This piece of linen swaddled Saint Sarah as a newborn baby. These flowers were placed in the cradle with her on the day of her birth. Everything we see here was described in the story written on those scrolls," Amina explained much like a museum tour guide. "Humans are called conspiracy theorists for believing the rumors but even the believers only have part of the story."

Krissy's face wrinkled. "You mean like that movie The Da Vinci Code?"

"Like I said," Amina repeated with the most serious, reverent tone Dean ever heard her use, "humans only know part of the story. Christ was a nephilim who fell in love with a human woman. He married her early in his ministry, but it was kept quiet and she wasn't Mary Magdalene like human conspiracy theorists believe. She was just a local girl and quite a bit younger. That was the thing back then. But because she too was called Mary, her identity got mixed up with the Magdalene woman. They had two sons right away, and at the time of his death, young Mary was pregnant with their third. So Mary--our beloved goddess--escaped with her to Egypt. The archangel Gabriel showed them the way, and Christ's widow gave birth in Egypt to a daughter that she named Sarah."

Sam sank into a chair first. Then Dean. Krissy, however, was still young enough not to feel exhausted by spiritual revelations.

"The window of Christ died before Sarah reached maturity and she was sold into slavery," continued Amina. "The mother of all slaves. She's highly revered in Voodoo tradition in the American South and the Caribbean now due to her deep ties with what their own ancestors endured. The sons migrated to Europe sometime after Sarah's death where they had their own families."

"So there are people running around with traces of nephilim grace in them without even knowing it," theorized Sam.

Castiel nodded. "Christ's daughter mothered African slaves. Christ's sons fathered European kings and queens." He leaned over and pulled the French relic closer. "Only a handful of people ever knew. It was decreed by God that Christ's descendants should never be identified."

"This knowledge was never meant for human eyes," confirmed Amina. She pressed a hand to her postpartum abdomen, weary, and sank into the nearest chair. "The rumors came from Templars who saw these scrolls and couldn't keep their mouths shut. The idea that some of Christ's descendants are not only part angel but black is historically too much for most people, so keeping it a secret was best for all. More so to protect the angelic lineage than a race questions."

"Angels generally don't comprehend human hangups on race and sexual orientation," Castiel added. "But they'll stop at nothing to protect their own kind. Even small traces of grace can lead to immense power." His voice shifted lower, warning them. "Once Heaven realizes where these things are, they'll be after us. It could get ugly if we don't return things right away. The problem is God will claim ownership but it was Mother Mary herself who penned these scrolls before her human body died."

Amina nodded in agreement. "The scrolls belong to her. Not God."

"Okay," Dean spoke up after they finished telling the story, "then we need to call down the Great Mother's angels without attracting dear old Dad's angels."

"Sounds easy," replied Sam, his voice dripping with sarcasm and rolling his eyes at the room.

A decision came over Castiel. He sharply nodded at no one in particular and tapped his knuckles on the table. "Right. So no praying about it. We don't know who's listening. Understand? Don't think about it during your daily prayer routines. This knowledge does not leave the bunker until we figure out how to return everything to Mother Mary without alerting God."

"Got it," Dean agreed with a nod.

"Yep. Just work the case, guys. Like any of our old cases," said Sam.

Krissy took it all in stride but faint lines between her eyes suggested stress and an awful sense of guilt. "I don't want to leave the stuff alone then," she told them. "I'll just, y'know, stay here in this dusty old place until we figure everything out."

"And I'll be here with my kids during the day," said Amina. "I'd like to translate the scrolls and keep proper records before everything goes back home."

Smiling in his loving way, Sam bent over his wife and kissed the top of her head. "You're such a librarian."

"Five years and you people still make me puke," muttered Dean.

*****

Sam Winchester loved his bed. He really, really loved his bed and if he had his way, he'd jump right in the second he got home every day. When he bought the house with Amina, they special ordered bedroom furniture to be a better fit for his enormous stature. For once in his life, he could stretch out and not dangle limbs over the edge.

He stretched an arm over his head and stuffed his hand under his pillow. Watching his wife brush her loose, curling dark hair at the vanity became one of those little pleasures in life that he kept for himself. With the new baby swaddled in a bassinet by her side of the bed and a toddler asleep in an under the sea room down the hall, life became everything he never knew he wanted so much.

"I'm bigger than I was after I had Bobby." Dismal, clear blue eyes reflected in her vanity mirror. Amina eyed herself critically, sitting there in a knee-length sleeveless white nightgown. "Remember when I used to wear all those little dresses from the fifties?"

"Baby, you've gone through natural childbirth twice in two years. Your body's gonna change," assured Sam from the bed. "Don't worry about it. Henry's not even two weeks old yet. You gotta give yourself time to bounce back if that's what you want."

Silence answered him for a time. He observed her as she studied herself in the mirror. She wasn't that big, certainly not to him, but he knew women sensitive about their weight couldn't take compliments that might be construed as simply patting them on the head. It was true that she wasn't the little thing he fell in love with in the Virgin Mary's war, but nothing about her would make him turn away. She gave him a home and children. She gave him everything.

"I don't feel right," she whispered, fingering the hairbrush in her hands. "I haven't felt right in a few days. Maybe a week."

"Like sick?" he asked as he leaned up on his elbow.

"No." Amina shook her head. "Like sad. Uncontrollably so. I'm concerned about postpartum depression. It's too early to know for sure but I don't feel the same way I did after Bobby and--"

"--Hey." Climbing off the bed, Sam knelt behind his wife and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. "Whatever it is, we'll get through it. You're a nurse. You know this kind of thing is pretty common. It just happens sometimes. I'll help out with the kids more and we'll get you checked out by a doctor if you want that. Okay?"

"Yeah," she whispered, leaning into him. "I'm just tired of pretending like I'm okay this time."

"Don't pretend. We've been through hell with the miscarriages and everything. I'm always impressed by your strength, Mina." Sam's hand wrapped around the side of her face and pulled her in for a kiss on the temple. "I told you when we got married that being a Winchester means family is everything. I don't want you to pretend things are okay if they're not."

"You're too good to me." She smiled a little.

"Yeah, well, who else is gonna willingly marry a recovering demon blood addict?" He gave her a little smile in return. "You stuck with me. I'm sticking with you for life."

Mrs. Winchester snuggled against her husband's chest for a long moment as he skimmed a hand up and down her back. It surprised Sam that he missed the signs of something potentially really wrong besides a new mother fussing about the extra baby weight. She'd been quieter since Henry was born but her personality always came back to life when other people were in her company. His wife pretended so well that her own husband didn't see it coming. Still, he wasn't that worried. If she had postpartum depression, she was the type of woman to draw from her internal strength and drive herself toward recovery.

"I'm so tired," Amina mumbled through a deep yawn. "I have to bring the boys to the bunker and start translating the scrolls tomorrow while you're at work."

"You sure you wanna do that?" he asked.

"I have to. It's a time sensitive thing."

They made their way to bed and crawled under the comforter. Amina bundled herself beneath Sam's chin as he lay on his back. Her habit of sleeping wherever her limbs landed hadn't changed since she became human. Only the silver chain holding her grace around Sam's neck changed since then. He realized they were the kind of people who couldn't stand sleeping apart and frequently made people like Dean sick. Of course, he never watched himself around Castiel either. Both Winchester brothers had a way of being those people with their spouses.

"Is this dangerous?" Sam asked after an interval of quiet. "I mean like the old days?"

"As long as God doesn't find out, everything should be okay."

Sam smirked. "If I had a penny for every time I've heard that phrase. And then it never turns out okay."

"I don't care what happens as long as our kids are all safe," said Amina sleepily. "It's not my life anymore up there."


	5. Chapter 5

"Man, you look like a politician."

Dean flashed his cockiest smile. "No, I look sexy like that dude in that Grey book. Cas said so." He buttoned a sleeve cuff on his white dress shirt and tucked it into dark charcoal slacks.

"Oh, gross. Why'd you let him read trash novels like that? It's based on _Twilight_ fanfiction, for shit's sake." Flopping back on the couch, Sam tried to suffocate himself with a steel blue accent pillow. His voice muffled under the interior decoration. "You guys are getting dangerously close to brunch and mimosas with little yappy dogs at a quaint bed and breakfast if you know what I mean."

"I quit trying to talk him out of trash novels and trash TV years ago. He got hooked on the Kardashians when he was laid up with the busted ankle a few years back and everything went downhill from there. Gotta pick my battles." Moving to the hall mirror, Dean looped a green tie around his neck. "I don't wanna hear your attitude anyway, considering you and your wife are headed toward  _Nineteen Kids and Counting_ territory. Breeder."

"Very funny coming from a guy dressed like a penguin because his husband needs a pretty trophy for political schmoozing," retorted Sam, hurling the pillow at Dean's head.

Dean cackled at his own reflection. "Ahhh, Sammy. Aren't we getting a little old for this?"

"Hell no."

"Thank fuck."

"Now, now, the future First Lady shouldn't use such foul language," Sam teased in a singsong voice.

As he grabbed his jacket and car keys, Dean flipped his brother a middle finger and threw a lopsided smile at the couch. "I'm gonna be late. Watch my kid. She's gonna wake up soon. Strained green beans and peaches in the fridge.  _Vegetables first_."

"I have two kids, Madame President. I think I know how to feed Lia."

"Don't burn down my house," Dean sassed.

Exasperated, Sam tossed his arms in the air. "Well, now you're ruining my whole afternoon."

*****

Looking after a baby girl struck Sam as a completely different ball of worms than his sons. He liked tucking newborn Henry in the crook of his elbow and carrying him around like a football, while Bobby was big enough to be thrown all over the place. Lia, though? No. Maybe it was sexist but Sam couldn't throw her all over or roughhouse the way he would with his boys.

She certainly had a bossy streak in her though. A pudgy, insistent hand stretched from the high chair and latched onto the spoon. Bright eyes drilled into his as if to say he simply wasn't feeding her fast enough. Adopted or not, that little girl got her appetite from daddy Dean. Again and again, she yanked spoonfuls of strained green beans into her mouth. Sam laughed at her bossy directions and wondered if she had Dean so thoroughly under her thumb too.

"You sure you actually need me to feed you?" Sam asked the girl.

Once she finished the green beans, he popped open the jar of peaches and decided to test his question. She seemed awfully young but the way she constantly grabbed at the spoon made him think she should be encouraged to learn how to feed herself. Immediately, he regretted the experiment though, as one baby hand snatched the jar and the other snatched the spoon. Letting out a long, triumphant note, Lia accompanied her battle cry with banging the spoon and jar on the high chair tray.

"No, no! Crap...." Liquified peaches splattered on her grape colored dress before Sam could stop it. She giggled at him the way a child did when they realized they were smarter than the adult. "Oh man...."

Sam couldn't even get mad at the baby. It was _his_ experiment gone awry, after all. Sighing through a smirk, he rose to his feet and wiped as much of the peachy mess off Lia as he could. He hooked hands under her arms and pulled her out of the high chair onto his chest, heading through the living room toward the stairs that lead to her nursery.

Upstairs, sweeping open her closet door, such a myriad of colors ranging from jewel tones to pastels hung on two closet rods, one above the other. Small baby clothes were easy to store that way but Lia had more than his two boys combined. As he rifled through her closet, he realized just how little he knew about raising little girls. Amina had wanted to keep going until they had a girl for themselves but he apparently had a lot to learn.

"No wonder Auntie Mina babysits you instead of me," he confided as Lia played in his hair. "Oh hey, look! Plaid! Here we go. Let's see... Cas usually makes you wear big sock things under dresses. That modesty thing he has. Drawers maybe?" Sam rolled open several dresser drawers until he found tights in a rainbow of colors balled up among socks and patent leather shoes. "Daddy Cas kinda buys stuff like you're a doll, huh?"

It took some effort wrestling a squirming baby into dark blue cable knit tights. Then he realized he forgot a fresh diaper and, sighing, had to wrestle everything all over again. At least Lia didn't hurl the baby wipes box across the room like Bobby used to do at that age. He wasn't sure if the white, blue, and pink plaid dress went with those damn tights but he really didn't care by the time he got through all the navy buttons. He wondered what the hell Castiel was thinking with so many complicated girl clothes when she spilled food on herself every day. The fact that Dean went along with it made him realize exactly how tightly he was wrapped around Castiel's finger.

"C'mon, Barbie girl, let's go call Auntie Mina and see how she's doing at the bunker." As always, Lia's little fists happily played in the hair dangling to Sam's shoulders. She babbled unintelligibly in his ear as he flipped off the nursery light and carried her downstairs again.

Halfway down the stairwell, the hair on Sam's forearm rose in a prickly electrical warning. He stopped, clutching Lia tighter against his chest, and turning his senses to their sharpest sensitivity. A ticking clock, the low, distant hum of the refrigerator, and then a mechanical thump of the air conditioner kicking on all sounded perfectly normal, yet he knew the predatory sensation. Decades of hunting fine tuned his body into detecting a threat far before he could see it. Though he hadn't been hunting in a few months, and sparsely so in the year before that, he suspected he would never lose that keen perception.

Lia gurgled into his neck and gummed down his shirt collar, oblivious to his change in mood. An arm wrapped around her bottom and the other wrapped around her back meant he could fight off the threat, so he marched downstairs and slipped her into the purple and white walker in the living room. Suddenly surrounded with toys and finding herself mobile, Lia grew even less aware of her uncle's concern.

A quick scan of the house revealed nothing out of the ordinary except a leaky water pipe leading to the washer in the basement and a doll shoved in the cabinet under the sink by Lia's crawling exploration. Still, Sam couldn't shake the prickling raised hair sensation along his forearms.

As he trotted up the basement stairs again, he found Lia happily bouncing in her walker while gnawing on a plastic farm animal. He smiled down at her and she offered a gummy smile right back, a few white teeth poking through. Just as he resolved to try and let go of the foreboding, a sliver of black drew his attention through the living room window. A stretch of Dean's meticulous green lawn carefully arranged with Castiel's irises along the walkway and an enormous Eastern Cottonwood tree off to the left side of the yard nearly hid the intruder.

"Stay here," Sam ordered baby Lia, immediately realizing how stupid that was as he stalked toward the front door.

A woman in a tailored black suit stood just beyond the property line observing the Winchester house. Only when Sam noticed her dark framed cateye glasses did he recognize her as Amanda Howell, the local bank manager as well as a member of their church. He dropped down the front steps, hands casually stuck in his jeans pockets, and crossed the lawn.

"Hey, Amanda," he said.

Eyes shifted from the house to his face and she smiled as if she had to remind herself of the common courtesy. "Sam," she greeted with a nod. "How are you?"

"Doing fine." No, something wasn't right about this at all. His glance flickered down to her black high heels firmly planted on the sidewalk. "Wanna come in? Kinda hot today. Just made a pitcher of lemonade."

Amanda took a step closer as if she agreed to the lemonade offer but once the pointed tip of her shoe encountered Dean's grass, she hesitated. More than hesitated, actually. She retreated but did her best to hide the reaction with a big show of flipping her hair and waving a hand over her face like a fan. With a chuckle, she made a comment about the heat just as he had.

"Well, come on in," Sam pressed.

"What's your brother up to today?" she asked, diverting the subject. "And that lovely husband of his? Off with the baby, I guess, huh?"

"Over in Kansas City visiting soldiers shipped back last week. Not exactly baby friendly stuff," Sam replied.

"Aw, are you babysitting then?"

"Yep."

Silence fell over the yard as Sam watched her, unflinching, and studied her appearance.

"So how 'bout that lemonade? C'mon in," he insisted.

Amanda's gaze darted to the picture window but a quick smile bloomed over her lips as she shook her head. "I've gotta head out. Dinner with the family tonight, you know."

"Sure." Sam nodded coolly. "Well, have a good afternoon then."

"Yeah, you too." It took a few seconds but she eventually moved on down the sidewalk, clearly there in a business suit and heels without a car.

The second Amanda Howell disappeared around the corner of the next block, Sam strolled over to the flowerbed surrounding the mailbox and pushed aside a few long daffodil stems. He tried not to break them, otherwise Castiel would skin his ass, but he got a clear enough view of the partial iron line that bordered the entire plot of land. If anyone dug a couple of inches into Castiel's flowerbed, they'd find part of it there. To come into the Winchester house, people had to cross that line every single time, yet Amanda Howell wouldn't attempt it.

Sam threw dirt over the iron line again and casually strolled back into the house. He couldn't know for sure why Amanda refused to come in for lemonade or why she appeared without a car, but if it walked like a duck and talked like a duck....

"Baby?" he said as soon as Amina picked up on her end of the line. "Hey. Everything okay there?"

"It's slow going," Amina replied without the slightest measure of distress in her tone. "Just went out for a late lunch with Krissy. I needed a break. My eyes were starting to cross and the words started jumbling together."

"Uh-huh. Anything I can do?"

"Not unless you're fluent in two dialects of Aramaic and at least four dialects of Hebrew. I used to read this stuff without flinching at all but now...." A sigh filled the line. "Now I'm tired and Henry needs breastfeeding every two hours and I'm just so--"

"--Human," Sam filled in her blank. "It's okay to admit you're human now."

"I guess."

"But everything else is okay? Nothing weird around the bunker?" Sam stooped and, with the phone shoved between his shoulder and ear, plucked Lia out of her walker.

"No, why?"

"Just checking."

Her tone sharpened. " _Samuel_...."

"Might've spotted a demon here," he muttered quickly in an effort to minimize the impact.

"Sam!"

"I handled it. Don't worry. I'm not even really sure it was a demon. Just as easily could've been another woman obsessed with my brother or Cas. You know how they sometimes show up here because of the papers." As Sam spoke, he hung onto Lia with one arm and tossed jars of baby food and bottles into her diaper bag. "Still, I think I'm gonna bring Lia to the bunker. Dean and Cas won't be back 'til late tonight."

Sam sensed his wife rubbing the stress from her eyes. "Yeah, okay. You need to tell Dean where you're going with his baby though."

*****

The last thing Dean wanted to do was drive all the way out to Lebanon after seeing so many men shot to bits by war. He rarely spoke to Castiel about it but being around all of those veterans in hospital visits reminded him of just how messed up his father had been after Vietnam.

As Dean steered the Impala around the last country bend before the bunker came into view, he glanced at Castiel dozing in the passenger seat. Neither of them had been very pleased to hear that a demon might have possessed Amanda Howell but it seemed all the more pressing and dangerous encountering a demon that time. No monsters of any kind had ever gotten close to their child. They didn't want to admit it but it gave them a wicked scare.

He pulled up alongside Sam's car and Amina's car, mildly comforted by the fact that it had been his brother who protected his daughter.

Slow, lazy breathing beside him made it difficult to wake Castiel after such a long day. Popping his seatbelt off and leaning over, Dean's hand skimmed over Castiel's abdomen until his arm wound around his waist. He nuzzled his sleeping husband's neck and dropped kisses along the sharp line of his jaw. The former angel still retained his inexplicable natural scent of faint roses, just barely, only when the air was clean and clear. It had been years but Dean still expected to have his embraces met with a broad expanse of silky black wing feathers covered over by iridescent liquid light. But the man in the passenger seat woke with a slowness that amounted to abject humanity. Mortality aged him in those five years together without grace. Yes, sometimes in moments of insecurity like a demon getting too close to their daughter, Dean burrowed himself against Castiel and pretended as if the grace still burned in his chest and the wings still sprouted from his shoulderblades.

"Are we in Lebanon already?" Castiel asked, his voice thick with sleep.

"Yeah," replied Dean. "You passed out."

"Sorry."

"It's cool, Cas. You'll just stay up with the baby tonight." He gave a lopsided smirk.

"Are we staying here?"

"Might as well."

Nodding, Castiel's hand slipped under Dean's jaw and they shared an intimate kiss that communicated now wasn't the time for lovemaking in the Impala like the good old days but I love you anyway. They stretched, yawned, and straightened their clothes outside of the car and headed into the bunker.

"Hi, guys!" Krissy greeted with far too much energy for that late hour. She strolled through the library while picking at a takeout box.

Too tired for conversation, Castiel feebly waved.

Dean grunted some semblance of a greeting and then asked, "Where's Lia?"

Poking toward the upstairs residence with her fork, Krissy swallowed her food. "Up there with Amina and her boys. I guess the kid's cutting a tooth or something. Sam took a ride into town for something called Ora... Orajoo?"

"Orajel," corrected Castiel with a nod.

"We'll be back," Dean said.

"Cool. Whatever."

The men wound their way upstairs and deeper into the bunker among various rooms where they'd all once lived. Keeping everything as it was five years ago when they left gave the place a sensation of preservation like a museum. They found Amina pacing languidly back and forth outside of her old bedroom with Lia over her shoulder. She patted and rubbed the baby's back as she rocked in an effort to soothe the little girl's incessant tears. Lia never squalled loudly, as if born a demure lady, but Dean recognized the higher pitch of pain. Though he hated watching her suffer, he felt a deep sigh of relief pass through his body. Teething, yes, but at least she was safe.

"Look, your daddies are here," cooed Amina. She spun so Lia, over her shoulder, could see both Dean and Castiel.

A soft smile for such a weathered hunter felt natural as Dean gathered up his little girl into his arms. He curled a finger and offered her a knuckle, which she chewed on immediately as she had each time she cut a tooth before. "There we go," he murmured. "Feels better, hm?" She still whimpered in pain as she drooled all over his hand but at least the crying dissipated to a manageable level. "That's my girl. Big bad demon comes along but it's business as usual for Winchesters."

Castiel's loving hand passed over Lia's soft golden hair and left a long kiss on her temple. What could have happened clearly tortured his mind.

"She's got a little fever. We got it handled though," reported Amina.

Nodding, Dean a simple, "Thanks."

"I know what you must be feeling. I mean, I think so. If anything like that got close to my boys, I don't know what I'd do."

"You're a Winchester. You'd take a blade to the chest or a bullet to the brain," Dean replied in quite simple terms.

After a moment, Amina nodded. "Yeah, I would."

"Do we know for certain that it was, in fact, a demon?" asked Castiel, lightly smoothing over Lia's hair.

"No, but Sam said she wouldn't cross the iron line and she was asking questions about where you guys were today. He had that feeling. That was how he described it to me. I could tell by his voice that he was a little bothered but he was trying not to scare me since I was out here by myself with Krissy and my boys." Absently, she gestured through her bedroom doorway. "I've got Bobby and Henry sleeping in my old bed. I was going to put Lia in her pack and play and just sleep with all the little ones in my room if you guys didn't make it here tonight."

"Well, we're here now." Dean said it more to Lia than Amina as he gazed down at the baby thoroughly gumming up his knuckle with her little hand latched around his thumb.

"You staying here?"

"Yeah, it's too late to drive back to Lawrence now," Castiel said, obviously eager to crawl into the first bed he encountered. Still, he sighed impatiently. "Why would a demon come looking around our home?"

"Maybe they figured out where we're hiding our graces," suggested Dean.

"I think if they really wanted them, it wouldn't have taken five years," said Castiel.

"It has to be the relics," Amina offered. "For all we know, they listen in on our phone calls. If they got a hold of these things, it'd be enough to start a real war with Heaven. Not just God's Heaven. Mother Mary's Heaven too. The whole thing. I'm certain they have no respect for the division of power now and most likely consider it their advantage in an attack."

"But our house?" Dean wondered aloud.

"Intimidation? I don't know." Shrugging, Amina honestly seemed at a loss. "The babies are safe here though."


	6. Chapter 6

"We’re not gonna let a couple of black-eyed assholes chase us away," Dean asserted, surrounded by the things from his old life in the old bedroom. A week in the bunker used to be nothing. It used to be home, in fact. But five years in a real home changed his temperament and the bunker felt like an underground prison. "I wanna go home, Cas. This is dumb."

"This is _safe_ ," corrected Castiel. He lightly bounced Lia in his arms in an attempt to quiet her teething tears. Over the baby's crying, he continued, "We don't know how many are out there or what they want. They can't get into the bunker. Lia's safe here."

"We never knew how many were out there when we had a baby in the first place! That's the risk we took! Demons destroyed my home when I was a kid and I'll be damned if I let 'em do it again! They're not chasing me underground! They're not chasing my child underground either!"

Castiel squinted hard, far beyond his curiosity into the territory of anger. "Stop yelling, Dean. You're scaring the baby," he hissed as Lia's tears intensified into anxious wailing. "Shh, sweetheart. Your father's simply frustrated."

"Ugh. I'm done talking about this if you're not listening." Waving a dismissive hand, Dean stalked toward the door.

"I _am_ listening. You're unwilling to allow the threat of demonic stalking frighten you into living in the bunker again. I understand. I don't agree but I understand." The tender patience he used to pillow his words meant he placated Dean in hopes that the hunter would let it go. Overt kindness wound around his points in each of the rare incidences when they had disagreements since getting married. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it soured Dean even more.

Looking back over his shoulder, Dean mumbled, "I'm not letting demons control another generation in my family. It stops with me," and then he swept out of the room.

As he stomped down the hall, he just couldn't seem to lower his blood pressure. He wasn't pissed at Castiel though. He was just _pissed_. And, just like the old days, he stalked around the bunker like a caged animal with no escape whenever he got ticked off back then. He considered grabbing his keys and driving to that old dive bar in Lebanon for a drink (or eight), but that didn't quite seem like himself anymore either. Not a single bone in his body wanted his daughter to look at him the way he looked at his father when the old man stumbled home after a bender. Of all the resolutions he made when Lia was born, that was the biggest. Be present. Be a father.

With a heavy breath, Dean came to the railing overlooking the strategy room and the library through an open doorway. Muffled voices from within sounded like Sam talking to Krissy and Amina, but Dean wasn't ready to join them yet. Surely Castiel would be along soon, once he got Lia through that bout of teething pain.

"Holy Mother, hear my prayer," Dean whispered, hands folded together over the iron railing. "Watch over Cas and Lia, will you? I know I don't pray enough. You've probably got a secretary listening for you or something, but I need another pair of eyes. My kid and my husband are my whole life, though I'm pretty sure he doesn't think so right now." He wound his fingers around each other, thinking. Then, "I gotta do something. If you could watch over my family, that'd be awesome. Amen."

The decision made, Dean flew down the stairwell for his shoes and car keys. He hoped to escape before the others noticed him but the family occupied a corner of a table in the library that faced the doorway. He'd have to go in and act like he wasn't about to do something marginally stupid. It was, after all, the Winchester way.

"Hey," Dean said casually, shoes and keys in hand.

Without looking up from her notes, Amina waved a quick hand. "How's the baby?"

"Still pissed about cutting teeth. Cas is trying to get her down for the night," he replied as he sat off to the side and put on his shoes.

"Going somewhere?" Sam asked.

"Thought I'd go pick up something for dinner. I'm sick of canned food." Of course, Dean lied straight through his teeth. He diverted the subject. "How's the translating?"

"It's difficult. My language skills aren't so good anymore. It's really embarrassing, actually. No archivist in Heaven would allow such basic skills to go unchecked. I mean, I'm getting through it but it's slow and I have to stop and check references a lot, which is just as difficult considering so few humans speak these languages anymore. Including me, apparently." Amina rarely sounded so down on herself in the past, yet she couldn't even lift her eyes from a scroll fragment to meet Dean's interested expression. She lined through several words in her notepad with a sigh. "I need another week. We don't have a single complete gospel here. We have fragments of four different gospels unknown to mankind as far as I can tell."

Krissy selected one of the plexiglass protected fragments and brought it for Dean's examination. "This one's written by Jesus' wife. She recorded stories of his missing years."

"Missing years?" asked Dean as he glanced over the faded ink.

"Jesus in the canon gospels goes through what's known now as his silent years," Sam explained for her. "The Bible doesn't say what he did between the ages of twelve and thirty. Then the reader gets tossed right into the ministry and the crucifixion. Nobody really knows much else about him."

"So then what was he up to?" Though Dean edged toward the doorway with his car keys, they had his attention.

"Looks like he was meeting demons all over the ancient world," said Krissy with an upward flex in her eyebrows.

It didn't compute in Dean's mind. "Come again?"

Amina finally looked up from her writing and relaxed her arms over the table. "Jesus was trying to broker a peace treaty between Heaven and Hell. He was a peace activist. Nothing in his wife's writing suggests he wanted the two worlds to join together but it's very clear that he was trying to create peace that would filter down into humanity. She writes that he sought out demon leaders for a full decade in his efforts to broker this treaty. It was so secretive that not even the angels knew about it. If angels didn't know, then humans absolutely didn't know."

"Shit...." Dean muttered.

"We have the treaty too," added Sam as he tapped a finger on a piece of plexiglass. "Mrs. Christ was a bit of a hoarder."

"I thought you said you'd seen this stuff before. You worked in the archives," Dean said to Amina.

She nodded. "I saw most of it before but I never read anything in detail. The treaty I never saw. I have no idea where it came from or how the Knights Templar got it. If I didn't know about it as an angel, then how did they?" A tight, irritated sigh suggested just how offended she was about being in the dark despite once having all the responsibilities of a multidimensional wavelength of celestial intent.

"Every family has skeletons in their closets," offered Dean in a feeble attempt at comforting her.

"Not like this," she retorted. "Had Jesus succeeded, the entire celestial world would be very different today. I can't even picture how different."

There wasn't anything Dean could say to put her mind at ease and he knew it. He passed his car keys from one hand to the other as he approached the table and, bending down, kissed her cheek. "Veggie nachos, Sis? I'll go to Willie's for you. Take a break. Make Sammy bring your boys downstairs. Nurse Henry. Relax a while and you can start working again after we eat."

A little smile twitched the corners of her mouth. "Thanks."

*****

But Dean didn't go to Willie's right away. Nobody needed to know that he went home to his dark, silent house under the cover of a starry Kansas night. The house looked lonely, he thought as he sat in the driveway with the Impala engine idling around him. Running away from home to hide from a demon seemed like such a shitty thing to do and he wasn't going to stay away much longer. Of course he wanted to protect his baby girl but he didn't want to raise her to hide from trouble either. He knew that wasn't Castiel's nature but neither of them knew how to deal with those threats now that they had a baby. Life had been rather quiet since Lia was born.

Dean pushed open the car door with a metallic click and stretched his legs in the yard. He cracked his neck from side to side and flexed his fingers on each hand as deliberate as it was slow. The essence of a predator sank into the empty spaces between his cells, filling his bones, muscles, and connective tissues with the old attitude. Hunters let their skills go dormant once families came into the picture, but as Dean's eyes narrowed with the precision of a hawk across the yard, he felt those old dormant parts creaking into life again.

His senses sharpened so that he didn't bother turning on the lights as he entered his home and trotted down to the basement. There his office stood untouched. The map dotted with colored pushpins hung on the wall. His desk gathered a thin layer of dust in the week since they left. Books lining the shelves caught his attention and he grabbed a few he'd gotten about the Knights Templar and Jesus Christ just in case.

But the real reason he came down to the basement stood in a compartment hidden behind one of the bookshelves. He pressed the pine edge of the shelf. It gave way and then popped open like a door, revealing a narrow open space no bigger than a closet. Four years before, Dean built the hidden space to hide away enough supplies for certain spells that might have come in handy even through his new domestic life. Thankfully the new moon left it dark enough outside that he could work a spell without attracting too much attention from his neighbors. He gathered up ingredients in his arms and kicked the hidden door shut again with his foot.

Outside, Dean set up the spell in his front yard. A bowl. Blood. Herbs. How long had it been since he'd done it? He struck a match and dropped it into the bowl, setting it ablaze in gold and sparks.

"I summon the demon riding Amanda Howell's meat suit," Dean announced darkly.

The blazing bowl sucked in on itself and the fire imploded. Nothing remained but ashes. He remained planted there with his hands stuck into his jeans pockets. Waiting, he glanced down one end of the street to the other from time to time until a pair of high heels echoed in the night air. Around the neighbor's oak tree, she appeared, wearing the same clothes she'd worn to church more than a week ago. He estimated in his mind just how long the demon might have possessed the poor bank manager.

"How's it going, Dean? Where's that sexy husband of yours?" the demon inquired.

"Who are you?" Dean demanded, ignoring the question.

"Cicely," she replied without issue. She shrugged. "I'd shake your hand, hunter, but you've got this little plot of land pretty well fortified with salt and--" she sniffed the air, resembling a prim little dog, "is that ground up iron? Inventive. Well done. The gossip back home was right about you."

"What do you want?" he pressed. "We're not in the hunter life anymore."

"Oh," she giggled, "but see, I know that's a lie, pretty boy. I haven't a clue of where your people are right now but I will soon. I guarantee it. You humans can't hide from us any more than pigs can hide in the mud once they roll in it."

Blood thrummed through Dean's ears as quick as the anger lurched him forward. "I'll ask you one more time. The hell you doing sneaking around my property scaring my family?"

"You have something my bosses need," she answered with a casual tip of her head.

Dean remained silent and willed every lash around his eyes to remain still, to not give anything away. He stared without a word.

The demon Cicely tittered like an innocent girl but the blackness within made it sound thoroughly terrifying. "Shall we discuss particulars then? The next time you summon me, I'll require the return of the objects stolen from my bosses all those years ago. You'll also bring me the gospels. One of your own stole these things from those horrid mystical Knights Templar and we need them now. So you find your own people who took them and you bring them to me. You hear?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Dean lied. At least he hadn't lost that particular skill. "Go yank on someone else's leg. You've got the wrong patsy."

As Dean turned his back and crossed the lawn toward his home, the demon Cicely spoke with such a sharp tongue that he felt the words lashing his back. "How's that tasty little fat baby of yours these days?" He turned and eyed her over his shoulder. She smiled a thin, predatory warning. "Human babies are really quite delicious with a light blood sauce."

Exploding across the lawn, retracing his steps, Dean stood just over the salt line from her and screamed, "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus omnis satanica potestas--"

"--You idiot!" raged Cicely. She reeled on her feet and clutched her chest.

Dean didn't let up. He kept going and refused to let her correct herself even for a second. "...omnis incursio infernalis adversarii--"

"--Fuck you!" Blackness began seeping from her nose as her body jerked from side to side. "Yeah, send me back! I'll be first in line to eat your baby!"

Louder Dean's exorcism boomed. "...omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica!"

The head whipped back in a blast of hot air and her long black hair flung loose from the neat clip resting at the crown of her head. A column of billowing black smoke erupted from Amanda Howell's chest, through her throat, and vomited from her wide open mouth like expelling poison. How the body could scream through regurgitating the demon, Dean never understood, but he watched it happen as if he'd never seen it before. It had been years. And as the black cloud snaked and spiraled through the air, he stumbled backwards on his haunches like a shamefully new hunter.

Amanda's body collapsed on the street, lifeless, as the demon escaped down a drainage sewer. Dean took her for dead. So many of the possessed ended up dead at the unclean hands of their captors that he expected nothing less that time. He sat on his haunches, stunned, and he honestly mourned her. She'd been a good friend to their family and their church. Like so many friends to the Winchesters, she ended up a tool used against them.

In the night shrouded under a new moon, a ragged, putrid sounding gasp for life clawed through the body sprawled on the pavement. Dean leaped forward and Amanda spasmed through gulping breaths and sobs choking her throat.

"Amanda? Shit! Hold on!" Dean looped an arm around her and propelled her upright. "Easy. Easy. Breathe in, out, slow. Hold on. You're okay. It's over now." It had been his fault, after all, just by virtue of moving into her neighborhood. "Are you all right? Can you breathe? Lemme see you. Look at me."

Bloodshot eyes orbited by blackened skin indicated the demon Cicely abused her body on the escape. She cried. She wailed. She choked on the unspoken terror of captivity there against Dean's chest. Innocently, she clung to him as if she didn't blame him for what happened. She didn't have to blame him, really. He did enough for both of them, adding it to years of ruining people's lives.

"C'mon," Dean said gently as he scooped her into his arms and moved for the Impala. "Let's get outta here."

*****

The bunker took on a different light in Dean's eyes as he strode through the entrance with renewed determination. He found his family seated around the little television area Amina set up before they moved out five years before. The latest Star Trek movie played on the screen while Castiel and Sam argued over Amina's head about the characterization of Spock. A baby monitor glowed on the end table.

"Hey! Where's my food?" Amina interrogated once she spotted him.

"In the car," replied Dean in a low, uncertain tone.

Castiel's brows knitted together and he squinted, worried. "You look sick. What's wrong?"

"Dean?" pressed Krissy when he didn't answer.

He couldn't quite shake himself out of that stunned stupor and understood that it'd been far too long since he'd witnessed anything that horrific. "Um ... I ... Krissy, I need you to watch the kids."  _Take charge, Dean. Get control_. "Get all the babies together in one room and sleep with 'em there. Nobody gets into the bunker except us. Got it?"

"Y-yeah," she replied.

By that tone, Sam rose up from the couch. "What's going on?"

"Amanda Howell," replied Dean, narrowing his eyes in silent communication that only his brother would grasp. "We have to go. Now. Krissy, call me if you need something. We'll be back as soon as we can."

"I have to take my own car so I can come back and nurse Henry," said Amina more to herself than the others.

"Wait, what's going on?" Krissy's voice followed them as they left the bunker. "Dean! Damn it! I'm not a child anymore!"


	7. Chapter 7

"Deep breath in," requested Amina with her stethoscope listening to Amanda's breath sounds, "and out again. Good. One more time."

Dean had never visited Amanda Howell's home but he figured she'd recover better in her own space rather a dirty motel outside of town. With his arms folded over his chest, he leaned on the doorway to her bedroom watching over things as Amina checked over her physical health. It came in handy having an emergency room nurse on his team. As Amina measured her pulse, he glanced over his shoulder at Sam and Castiel rustling around the front of the little Depression-era shotgun house setting devil's traps and creating various warding sigils.

"What  _are_ you people?" pleaded Amanda, her voice and body trembling.

"Hunters," Dean replied. The direct approach was always best. "We protect people from the things that possessed you."

"Demons," she surmised with wide, horrified eyes.

"Yep." He nodded. "Among other things."

Amina's tongue made a short, quick hiss against the roof of her mouth and shook her head. "Be sensitive, Dean." She diverted Amanda's questions with her own. "Do your eyes hurt when I press here? Or here?"

"Not too much," she mumbled, still quite stunned.

"Okay, good. No facial fractures then. You should rest for a few days but I don't see any lasting effects of the possession on your body."

A bitter chortle answered her. "Didn't say anything about my mind."

"Well," conceded Amina patiently, "it takes time for anyone to recover from a traumatic experience. You're not alone, of course. We're your friends and so is everyone in the church, but we don't recommend advertising that you were possessed. Those who don't believe you will say you need psychiatric care and those who do believe you will start seeing you as some kind of religious icon. Trust me. We've seen it all."

Amanda's head bobbled loosely, a vague nod, and a few moments of tense silence passed. She slumped forward and crumbled into her own hands, seated cross-legged on her bed. "Oh my Mother Mary, it was so horrible. I saw everything it did but I couldn't stop it. Those things hate the cold here and it walked my body right into the fireplace out there in my living room." A sob choked her words but she made a valiant effort to keep her wits about her. "It wouldn't let me eat or drink except booze. It liked to make my body drunk because it could feel that."

Crouching at the corner of her bed, Dean adopted a careful tone. "Do you know who the demon's bosses are?"

"Someone called Crowley," she replied, rubbing her brow. "And there's a ... like a second-in-command ... a tenuous alliance. That one was called Abaddon. The thing--the demon in me--it was loyal to the Abaddon thing, not the Crowley thing, but I never saw either of them. Just a few ... I guess you'd call them underlings."

"Okay. Good. You're doing great." Dean grabbed the floral notepad off her nightstand and scribbled down everything she said. "Do you know what they're planning?"

"No. I don't know." A heavy, strained breath failed at steadying her nerves. She combed her fingers through her hair. "I don't know ... um.... A spell, I think. Are spells real? Oh man...." She started to fall apart again but Amina's thoughtful hand rubbing her shoulder grounded her. "There's something about universal power. All the puzzle pieces together make them impossible to kill or to send back to Hell. They can invade Earth and Heaven with that spell."

The pen froze in Dean's hand and he eyed Amanda coolly, though inwardly, his mind flew with activity. She clearly had no idea what she was talking about--just reporting the things she'd witnessed--and maybe she didn't even believe what she said at all. It sounded fantastical, like the villains in a fairy tale.

"I don't know anything else about it, though," said Amanda. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay. You're helping a lot," Dean assured.

"Yeah," agreed Amina with a nod. "You wanna try to eat? I'll warm up the Mexican food Dean picked up. It's important that you keep up your strength. And we'll stay 'til you're ready for us to go."

Grateful, silent tears filled Amanda's eyes and she nodded through a shaky smile.

*****

"Goddamn it, Dean!" came Krissy's detestable greeting the second he stepped into the bunker. With Lia squalling on her hip and Bobby hugging her leg in nothing but a diaper, she looked terrifyingly like a frazzled and ignored housewife. "Don't you ever ditch me here again without telling me what the hell's going on!"

Exhausted, Dean shuffled closer and took his baby girl into his arms. "I had an emergency. There wasn't time to submit a report, okay?" His voice hung low in his throat as he snuggled Lia under his chin, hoping to soothe her. "Did you try the frozen teething ring?"

"Yeah," Krissy replied, marginally calmer. "Just squirted a little Orajel in there a little while ago."

"Okay. Hey--" grabbing her attention, he tilted his head, "--thank you for watching our kids."

A bit of a sneer jerked her chin. "Yeah, well, somebody has to."

Both Sam and Amina fanned out, plucking Bobby off the floor and Henry from a portable crib by the couch. Castiel kissed the back of Lia's head in passing as she sniveled and slowly calmed down snuggled against Dean's chest. No one spoke of the demonic possession, instinctively avoiding it in front of the little ones even though Bobby was the only one barely old enough to feel the tension. Curiosity plagued Krissy though. She fidgeted and watched all of them settle after such a long night.

"There was a d-e-m-o-n," said Castiel, spelling the word instead. "It knows what's going on but not where.  _They_ want our...."

"Treasure," Sam interjected as he wrapped Bobby up in a blanket. "The pirates want our treasure so they can be richer than everyone and have enough power to take over  _everything_."

Krissy's brows knitted together. "Do the ... uh ...  _pirates_ know where the treasure is? I mean, do I need to ... uh ...  _get my sword_? 'Cause I'm ready for a fight, y'know. Any time. Any place."

"They can't see through the bunker's warding. This is a big blank spot on their radars," said Dean quietly for his baby's sake.

"Except Crowley," corrected Sam. "We should block off the entrance he knows. Really, we should've done that a while ago. C'mon, Bobby, you can help Daddy lock the doors and then we're going to bed." He trotted off with the toddler on his arm.

Listening to them speak in cryptic tongues to protect little ones proved to Dean just how different their lives were from the old days when a crisis in the universe sent them into fights with guns blazing. That night, it was well beyond one in the morning and all Dean could think of was getting to bed with Castiel and their baby. He didn't even want her to sleep in the crib. He needed his daughter gathered close to his chest, feeling her sweet little breaths, and smelling the sweetness of her hair and skin. That hateful, sulfurous thing threatened his innocent little baby and it shook his nerves more than he wanted to admit. Truthfully, Dean felt a sense of foreboding that he didn't want to admit either but it made him obsessively clingy with Lia.

"I'm about to pop," announced Amina as she patted her cleavage. "I'm gonna go top off Henry and go to bed. Good night, everybody."

"Night," replied Krissy cautiously. Her attention turned to Dean and Castiel again, offering, "I'll sit up 'til morning. Watch over things. It's my fault. I came here and brought all this crap on you."

"No, you were right to come here," argued Dean. "Letting them get to that stuff would be like giving them nuclear warheads. We can stop it."

"I agree," Castiel echoed, nodding. "And I'll get up at dawn with the children so you can go to bed. It won't be long."

With a nod, they each parted ways. Lia soothed her aching gums gnawing on Dean's shirt as he carried her, following Castiel to their old bedroom. Exhaustion weighed down his limbs but so did the unsettling anxiety over whether he and Castiel were still fighting. The former angel didn't talk to him, even when they shut themselves in the bunker bedroom and he started stripping out of his clothes.

Dean sat on the far edge of the bed, uncertain. His nose buried in Lia's sweet hair gave him comfort knowing she was safe there in his arms. Eyes closed, he turned over everything in his mind, knowing he needed to resolve the fight with his husband about going home. Apologizing for anything just wasn't the Dean Winchester way and he still struggled with it even after five years of marriage. Maybe that was one reason why he loved Lia so much. No matter how much he screwed up, he was still her daddy and she reached for him and Castiel when she cried. She was too young to comprehend Dean's ego and how guilty he felt when he screwed things up for his family.

The old memory foam mattress wasn't so solid anymore. Castiel's weight sank behind Dean and a pair of arms wound around his shoulders. His body heaved with a sleepy sigh, chin resting on Dean without saying a word for a long time. A hand curled around the back of Lia's head and her inquisitive bright eyes lifted to the face hovering behind Dean. She gave Castiel a droolly grin, revealing two new teeth along her bottom gumline.

"I'm sorry, Cas," whispered Dean.

"For what?" he whispered back.

"For yelling at you this afternoon. You were right. It's safer to keep Lia here for right now." It took a lot for him to admit not being equipped to protect his child alone but he knew they were stronger united than divided.

Castiel gave him a squeeze. "Yelling makes me feel like part of the family," he teased, lightening the mood.

"Yeah, but I shouldn't have fought you so hard over our kid," Dean replied. He just couldn't shake the knot in his stomach. "I went home, Cas. I summoned the demon. She identified herself as Cecily and she said her bosses want us to give up the stolen artifacts. I told her to screw off, basically, and then she threatened Lia. That was when I got pissed and exorcised her ass back to Hell. The things she said about our baby, Cas ... I just ... I lost it."

"Threatening the one thing we love the most is to be expected," Castiel said soothingly after a moment of contemplation. "Demons are weak and attack what they recognize--our weaknesses. We knew these risks when we had a baby, just like you said this afternoon. That you were right about. But don't think our argument was the end of the world, all right? We argued. It happens. We have thirty or forty more years of arguing ahead of us and I'm looking forward to it." His hands skimmed up and down Dean's back as his voice dropped playfully. "What do you always say--fighting's a free pass for make-up sex? Hm?"

Dean chortled and rolled his eyes to the ceiling, not wanting to feel better as if he should punish himself for being pigheaded. He did feel better in spite of the self-loathing knot in his gut. Castiel had that way about him of knowing just how to reach him.

A renewed embrace from behind came with soft kisses and a soft voice. "It'll be all right, Dean. We'll just keep the family here until we return the artifacts to Heaven and we'll tell people our house is being fumigated or something. Mina thinks she can finish all the translating in another week. I'll stop at home after work tomorrow and pick up a few things to make us more comfortable here."

"You're going to work?" Dean peered at him over his shoulder.

"I should. I can't avoid my office too long. My employees will start asking questions. Maintaining our routines as best as we can might keep any demons possibly watching us from noticing strange activity." Quickly, he smoothed it over. "But no late nights at my office. I promise. Just a forty hour week."

"That's like part-time for you," sassed Dean, grinning.

"See? You're getting a better deal now." Castiel grinned in return.

*****

Letting Amanda Howell cope with the aftermath of possession alone didn't sit well with Dean. Maybe he was getting softer as he got older but leaving possession victims to their own devices like in his old hunting days seemed screwed up and heartless, especially for a member of their own family church. Besides, Castiel went to his office at an unholy early hour and Amina, Sam, and Krissy treated translation and cataloguing like a full-time job. It left Dean bored and thinking too much about the bad things that could happen.

He packed up a diaper bag for Lia and loaded her car seat into the center of the Impala's backseat. She soon dropped off to sleep on the drive back to Lawrence from the Lebanon bunker, giving Dean quite a while to listen to his music. It felt good speeding down the highway drumming his thumbs to the beat on the steering wheel.

The blinds were drawn in all of Amanda's windows when he pulled into her driveway despite the hour pushing noon. Carrying Lia on his hip, he rang her doorbell and waited. He knew she was home but probably intended on hiding from the world like all possession victims. Some of them never really recovered, not that Dean ever hung around in one place long enough to see what happened to them. Not that time. He wasn't going to let Amanda succumb to the aftershocks of trauma.

The front door finally edged open into a darkened house with Amanda wearing her bathrobe. Long, dark hair hung in ratty, unbrushed clumps and the bruises around her eyes looked worse with the lack of sleep aging her face.

"Hey," greeted Dean with a thoughtful smile. "Lia and I were talking over mashed peaches this morning and she said she hasn't seen her friend Amanda in a while." The smile crinkled into something lighthearted and lopsided. He took Lia's wrist and mimicked a baby waving her hand. "Wanna go hang out with us? It's a nice day."

"I don't know." Anxiously, she peered beyond him at the outside world. She clutched the lapels of her bathrobe like armor. "You honestly trust me around Lia now?"

"Yeah, why not?" he asked, though he knew full well what she meant.

"The things I said--"

"--It wasn't you, Amanda. You gotta separate yourself from the demon. Being possessed doesn't make you responsible for the stuff that thing did while it was in your body." Dean pushed his daughter into Amanda's arms, though she initially resisted it, but he knew it was for her own good. "Feel this? This is real, not the lies that demon fed you. You can't let it win and sitting here at home with the blinds pulled isn't helping. Best thing to do is get back on the horse, y'know?"

Baby Lia babbled happily as she gnawed on a colorful toy keyring without the slightest conception of her therapeutic value to the woman holding her. A sideways eye told of Amanda's skepticism like she didn't trust herself with the child a demon spoke of eating with blood sauce in her voice. Dean, keeping it casual and relaxed, leaned a shoulder on her doorway and waited for her to make up her mind.

"Could we go to the church? Just for a few minutes?" she asked.

"Sure." Nodding, Dean urged them inside so she could get dressed.

It was a start, at least.

*****

Sam studied his wife over the library table. She'd hardly glanced up from her notebook and the latest gospel fragment all morning. The noontime hour came and went without the slightest hint of hunger or the need to stretch her legs. Even Krissy got stir-crazy and took the boys into Lebanon where other children went to a playground. He was going to have to be delicate but push Amina into caring for herself.

"You doing okay, baby?" he broached with a soft tone.

"Fine," she replied absently, her finger tracing a line of Hebrew.

"Getting hungry?"

"Not really." Flipping a page, Amina seamlessly continued writing.

Sam sighed and leaned forward with his arms folded on the table. "You haven't eaten today."

"Haven't I?"

"No."

"Oh. Huh." Still, she continued working.

"Mina...."

"What?"

Standing, Sam grew concerned enough to clamp his hand over her pen and, in forcing her to stop writing, got her attention. Her eyes turned up to his high stature and questioned him in a silent manner that once again reminded him that her vessel and Castiel's vessel were siblings. Some of their expressions mimicked one another so thoroughly that Sam averted his eyes for just a moment to let it pass. It reminded him too much of talking to Castiel, his brother-in-law. Then, like a veil lifting, Amina's own expressions took hold again.

"Baby, you're getting obsessed with this." Maybe he should have found more careful words.

"No, I'm not. This is a time-sensitive matter," she countered.

"That happens to give you a free pass in avoiding your depression," he added.

Amina's sparkling blue eyes faded into a dull, wounded shade and she stared for a long moment as if he accused her of kicking a puppy. The last thing he expected was pushing her into a flood of tears but it happened right there. She held the back of her hand to her mouth as if she tried to hold back the whimpering sounds of defeat.

Immediately, Sam loathed himself for pushing her like a Winchester robot. "Shit, I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" he mumbled as he dropped to his knees, doing anything he could to stop her tears. "Damn it. I didn't mean to--"

"--Why would you say that?" Amina's voice worked its way around a choking, angry sob and then her body forced a deep breath.

"I don't know. It was stupid. I'm really sorry." In fact, he'd spoken to her in the same tone his father had spoken to him. _Buck up. You're a Winchester. Winchesters don't get depressed._ Sam folded his wife carefully in his arms and soothingly ran fingers through her hair as her head rested on his shoulder. "I know you're having a hard time right now. I shouldn't have rubbed your nose in it."

"I feel so stupid," admitted Amina, pulling away just enough to look at him through red, swollen eyes. "Henry spit up on his clothes this morning right after I got him dressed and I burst into tears over that too. This is so stupid."

"It's not stupid," Sam assured, caressing her arm. "You've been through a lot trying to have our kids. I think you're pretty damn tough. I know I couldn't go through miscarriages, morning sickness, and natural childbirth twice. I'm just not used to seeing you this fragile." Shit, that was the wrong word for a retired warrior of Heaven. "I don't mean that in a bad way but it's okay to say look, I feel like crap right now and I need a rest."

"I do need a rest." Her voice turned so soft admitting that.

Sam nodded. The rest she was talking about wasn't going to the beach or hiding in a cabin somewhere. Carefully, Sam steered it. "Baby, I know you're against it but I want you to think about birth control."

She retracted from his touch. "Sam--"

"--Just think about it," he tried again. "We've got plenty of time to try for another one after Bobby and Henry are a little older. Birth control doesn't make you less of a woman. It makes you more focused on taking care of yourself and our boys between pregnancies."

"Or we could just stop having sex." The slightest smile fluttered her lips.

Sam tilted his head, giving her a hard, skeptical eye. "We barely make it through the six weeks of childbirth recovery. You really gonna cut me--and yourself--off until you're ready for another baby?"

The faint giggle shined a bit of hope through her eyes. She turned bashful being reminded of their sex life, which she regarded somewhat old-fashioned and private, never really discussed outside of the bedroom. He grinned to himself and swiped a thumb under her eye, then the other, never wanting to see her cry because of his occasional insensitive comments.

"Listen, baby, it's gonna be okay but you can't hold it all in," he said, bringing it back on track. "Think about birth control and think about anxiety medication just until you work through the worst of it. Postpartum depression's no joke. I know you know that."

Amina's body sighed hard like expelling poison. "Okay," she relented, nodding. "I'll think about it. I still don't like birth control since it's so hard for me to have babies but I'll think about it. Only temporary though."

Lifting his hands in surrender, Sam nodded. "Only for a little while. Just giving your body a break to get your strength back. The second you wanna stop, we'll flush those pills down the toilet." Whatever it took to get her head around letting herself rest and recover from back to back pregnancies.

"Okay," she agreed.

"That's my girl." Sam leaned up from crouching on the floor and took her face in his hands for a sweet, long kiss. "Remember it's up to you. If you try it and feel uncomfortable, I won't say another word."

She nodded with a tired smile. "Would you care if I went to lay down until Krissy brings the boys back?"

"You don't need my permission to do anything," chuckled Sam. "I think it's a good idea though. Go on to bed. I'm gonna burn us some lunch."

Amina giggled more openly and tugged his face up to hers for another kiss. Slender fingers languidly passed through his hair as he nuzzled him, offering more affection than she had in several days. Perhaps longer. His hands never felt larger or more imposing than when he clung to the delicate bones of her long wrist or the elegant line of her shoulders, but they touched, sweetly so. She'd taught him a great deal about touch and affection without a sexual element, and those were the moments that reminded him of how they truly did love each other.

"You're more patient than I deserve," she whispered.

He smiled against her cheek. "I was just thinking that about you."


	8. Chapter 8

Beginning that day—a single day—Dean hadn’t a clue that it changed the rest of his life with a solitary sentence.

"I think I'm gonna summon the handmaidens today."

Amina stiffened, a file folder suspended in her grasp. "I just finished translating last night. You sure you don't wanna at least sleep a while?" Of course, she had no intentions of sleeping until the translations were properly sorted, filed, and catalogued in the Heavenly Lore section of the Men of Letters research material. It'd been a long couple of weeks for her and every minute of it showed in her face.

"The longer we wait, the longer we're sitting ducks. I don't like holding onto stolen nukes like these," he replied. "'Sides, I'm getting stir-crazy. I gotta do something."

"I'm coming with you," announced Krissy.

"Okay, yeah, that'll work. They might have questions about what you saw," Dean agreed with a nod.

A thin smile bloomed over her mouth, pleased that she didn't have to argue to get her way, it seemed. Dean had an overprotective tendency toward very capable women in his life and he knew it. He still visited Amanda Howell whenever he could and still grappled with guilt after her possession.

"You need me for this?" Sam asked, clearly torn between his children and duty.

"Nah," decided Dean for him. "Krissy and I got it."

"I'll be glad when this is over," she admitted, looking around the room. "I feel like I just threw everybody's lives into my mess. Moral of this story is stay the hell away from attractive, charming Englishmen, because they're all usually villains."

"Yeah, look at that Jaguar commercial," laughed Amina from the library bookcases.

Castiel made his way downstairs with Lia draped lethargically on his shoulder. He joined the family in the bunker library, approaching Dean for private consultation. "I'm taking Lia to her pediatrician," he confided. "She's congested with a climbing fever, so this isn't just a teething problem."

"Oh," said Dean as he smoothed the back of Lia's head under his palm. "You feeling yucky, baby? Don't worry. Daddy's taking you to the doctor."

"I think it's probably better to get her out of the bunker. Henry's still a newborn. It's dangerous for such little ones to be exposed to germs and viruses," Castiel added, the both of them petting and loving on their daughter.

"I'll meet you at home then."

Castiel's brows lifted. "We're going home?"

"Yeah, I'm calling down the handmaidens today."

The former angel smiled and patted Lia's back. "Did you hear that? We're finally going home. Come on, sweetheart. Let's go to the pediatrician and hurry home so you can rest in your own crib."

Kisses passed between the three in the little family even though they likely just got each other sick with whatever plagued the baby. Dean didn't much care though. It took him a long time to get to a place in his life where he wanted a family and children but he was glad he waited until he could really appreciate it. He smiled at Lia as Castiel swept her from the library to get her coat and shoes for the doctor visit.

"Bye, sweet girl. I'll see you later," Dean said.

*****

The best place to summon the handmaidens was, Dean surmised, in the empty Church of the Goddess Mary. He intended to keep all summonings--even the benevolent ones--away from the children still at the bunker. He and Krissy locked up the church so no stray parishioners could interrupt and she followed him down to the basement for the most privacy. They each carried new boxes dividing the artifacts from the fragments of gospels at Amina's insistence. To her, it was disrespectful to sling an old, ratty box of unorganized holy objects at the Goddess Mary's handmaidens.

"What are you gonna do after this?" Dean asked conversationally as he drew a summoning sigil on the floor.

"I dunno. Go back to hunting, I guess," replied Krissy, leaning back against a table with her arms folded over her chest. "I haven't really thought about it, to be honest. I never do. I just kinda go where the next problem takes me."

"I remember those days," he reminisced.

"You don't miss it?"

"Sometimes," he said truthfully. "I hit the road with Sammy sometimes to get it outta my system but then I miss Cas and Lia. I end up happier at home. Just not the same guy I was last time you saw me."

"Yeah, I know." She nodded, wearing a thoughtful expression.

He glanced up at Krissy as he finished setting up the ritual space. "You ever think about settling down?"

"Oh, please," she shorted with an eyeroll.

Dean laughed softly, saying, "Okay, fair enough. You're young."

"I'm old enough to get mixed up with asshole men though," she retorted.

"That happens to everyone." Dean swiped his hands together and stood. "Okay, let's do this thing. Stand on the south end there."

Krissy obeyed and tugged her sleeves to her elbows, standing just where he pointed. Eager but uncertain of what to do, she studied everything he did. It had been a long time since Dean made a blood offering but he decided the blood of the infamous Righteous Man would attract the handmaidens faster than Krissy's blood. He grimaced in pain as the blade pierced a line along his inner forearm. He let his blood drip deep red lines into the offering bowl, coating the Goddess Mary's chosen herbs. When he was satisfied that he bled enough, he ripped open a gauze bandage (those things mattered to him since having a baby) and bound his wound before chanting the spell.

"Zod ah mah rah na ee es lah gee roh sah," he chanted the Enochian words.

The pair of them waited.

"What does that mean?" Krissy whispered after a moment.

"Show yourself within this bitter sting," he translated in a whisper.

Right on cue, Dean's long-dormant empathic senses reanimated with the arrival of misty golden clouds. He observed Krissy's jaw falling open in shock but then her inner resolve steeled her against whatever came. Glimmering light materialized out of the clouds, and honestly, Dean wanted to get on with things without handmaiden theatrics. They never just walked into a place. Their arrivals were always designed to intimidate, to impress, and to prove a point that they were the most intimate beings in the universe with the Goddess Mary.

Three identical triplets appeared, aristocratic vessels that dated back to Croatia's medieval period. Not a thing changed about their gold brocade hooded capes over equally gold embroidered brocade gowns. Luminescent blonde hair hung in long ringlets down to their waistlines, though Krissy couldn't see the length under their capes. Dean sussed out their identities much easier than he had so many years before when they appeared at the bunker with over a hundred vials of angelic grace that needed to be hidden in the then-Virgin Mary's war for independence from God. Someday, he reminded himself, he'd have to tell Krissy the old war stories. For the moment, he stepped forward and offered a shallow bow for the three handmaidens.

"Ladies," he greeted with one of his most charming smiles. He still enjoyed trying to rile them up, like the fight to get a smile out of a Buckingham Palace guard. "I brought Krissy--"

"--The thief," interrupted Batina, the leader. She bypassed Dean and grabbed a rather stiff, confused Krissy by the shoulders and kissed her forehead. "Sweet child, you've done holy work and you will be remembered through the ages."

"I... uh...." Krissy squinted. "What?"

"She means you did a good thing," filled in Dean, grinning to himself. Flowery language confused Krissy and made her uncomfortable just like him at the beginning.

"Okay, cool." Nodding, Krissy said thank you as if the handmaidens didn't speak English.

Strange bubbling twitched Dean's stomach as the three handmaidens listened to Krissy talk about the contents of the two boxes. He ignored it but a vacuum sensation sucked away all sense of hearing, making him reel toward a nearby table. Panic seized his heart. It clutched the vital organ and squeezed until he feared falling over and dying of a heart attack, but he furiously struggled to keep himself upright. Something was wrong but he couldn't pinpoint the sensation.

"Dean?"

He heard a feminine voice somewhere in the vacuum and groped at the air until a hand grabbed hold of his. That tether to reality steadied him enough that the vacuum subsided enough to understand it was Krissy holding his hand while the golden handmaidens scattered, on high alert. They sensed it too.

"Go home, Dean," ordered Batina in such a cool monotone that he really knew something was bad. She stared unblinking through the basement window cutting a small rectangle near the ceiling.

"What's going on?" he growled.

Instead of answering him, Batina delivered equally cool, monotone directions to the other handmaidens. Sorina and Claudia calmly collected a box each and vanished without so much as a goodbye. If Dean wasn't so thrown by his dormant empathic abilities raging back into life and picking up the most paralyzing sense of fear, he might have been offended at their rudeness. Then another thought occurred to him all too suddenly. The two handmaidens scurried off with the artifacts so abruptly because a threatening force approached. He spun, half expecting to find a flock of demons in the basement ready to attack.

"Go home, Dean," Batina ordered again, more sternly that time.

She was pushing him. "What's going on?" he demanded louder.

"Go! Now!" Her voice boomed with a tornadic wind blowing Krissy along with him toward the door.

Adrenalin kicked in and propelled Dean's legs across the parking lot. The Impala waited as steady as ever. He threw himself into the driver's seat with Krissy only a second behind him in the passenger seat. Neither seemed to have the courage to question why things went so bad so fast as the tires screeched over the pavement.

Dean made the five minute drive around the southern perimeter of Lawrence at a dangerous speed, cutting corners through gas stations and running a few red lights along the way. It wasn't a huge city and people certainly recognized his car. Soon enough, he'd be the talk of the town with gossip about why he broke so many traffic laws with a strange woman seated beside him. But Dean Winchester didn't give a shit what people said about him if the handmaiden for the Goddess Mary corroborated his sense of immediate dread.

The Impala screeched as he slammed the brakes, parked diagonally in the driveway. He didn't even shut the car door or wait for Krissy as the crushing sensation in his chest tightened. It grew worse, he realized, the closer he got to the source of the terror.

"Cas!" he barked, throwing open the front door.

A putrid odor hit him at the threshold. Krissy gagged and threw her inner elbow around her mouth as they shouldered their way into the house. The metallic scent of blood stuck to the back of Dean's throat, as did the unmistakable smell of rotten eggs. Blood and sulfur mixed together were, without a doubt, the worst odors he'd ever come across in his life and his eyes stung with tears as he made his way through the ground floor. Angel blade drawn, Dean found himself cursing their decision not to keep guns in the house with a baby there.

"I'll sweep the kitchen," Krissy whispered. She, of course, carried a handgun.

Dean descended into the basement--his office--and found file cabinets and bookshelves overturned. Books, paperwork, and everything in between littered the floor, yet whoever had been there never found his safe hidden in a wall. His most precious possessions were safe.

The two of them met in the living room again, having found nothing amiss. Together, Dean and Krissy headed upstairs. Blood and rotten eggs suffocated them both. Every cell in Dean's body wanted to call out to Castiel but he hoped the former angel was still at the doctor with their baby. He nearly convinced himself of the lie until the hall rug squished beneath his boot, squeezing out a small bit of blood. The partially dried trail led from the master bedroom to his little girl's butterfly nursery as if a body had been dragged that direction--or dragged itself. Nausea overcame Dean and he tipped forward, hands braced on his knees. He couldn't force his feet forward, terrified of what he might find. Horrifying images of Castiel and Lia murdered by demons filled his thoughts, crippling him where he stood. The cycle threatened all over again--the cycle that began with a demon murdering Mary Winchester.

"I... I can't...." he stammered through the whisper, shaking his head, and he loathed himself for being too much of a coward.

Without judgment or prodding, Krissy pointed her gun ahead and slithered past Dean. She didn't even look at him or offer a reaction in her expression as she swept the bathroom and the master bedroom. He stood upright again just as Krissy edged her way into the nursery.

"Cas! Oh my God!" Krissy cried, bolting into the room.

As Krissy dropped the gun and ran to Castiel, it snapped Dean into action. He instantly set aside his fear and ran after her. They nearly tripped over an unrecognizable lump heaped on the floor. Dean flipped on the wall switch, illuminating the nursery in harsh light that showed him a swath of blood splattered across the crib bars. There Castiel lay, spread out on his stomach with a hand reaching for the crib, yet it appeared that he never made it. He didn't move. Blood seeped into the rug beneath his chest and the smell made Krissy want to retch.

Dropping to his knees, Dean only vaguely felt Castiel's blood seep into his jeans. "Cas? Son of a bitch! You better not be dead! Fuck!"

He stuck his first two fingers against Castiel's throat and held his breath, waiting. Steady but faint thump, thump, thump answered his touch. Dean exhaled raggedly, grateful and accepting that Castiel was still alive.

The baby. Oh God, the baby. Dean hoisted himself off the floor, carefully stepping over Castiel, and mustered what courage he had left to look into the crib. Part of him expected to see his child fatally wounded or even dead. But instead, Dean found the crib empty. His daughter was gone. He didn't even know how he found the strength to stand up or even come into the room in the first place. No tears filled his eyes. There wasn't even an ability to scream. He was in shock.

From the window, Krissy's voice registered somewhere in his thoughts. "Sulfur in the windowsill. Demons did this."

There came the rage, the anguish, the terror, and the violent nausea all at once, dropping Dean to his knees at Castiel's side. He could save his husband and forced himself to tighten his focus on that task, rolling the unconscious body over on his back. Some of the blood already began to dry in sticky layers on his shirt. Pale and ashen, his breathing was steady enough at least. Dean ripped open the shredded shirt and quickly took stock of a stab wound through his shoulder and another one through his gut. Instinctively, because he couldn't seem to connect coherent thoughts, he pressed his palms over the gut wound to stop the bleeding.

"I got you, Cas. Just hold on," he murmured.

"They thought he was an angel," Krissy pointed out, kneeling opposite him.

"What?" asked Dean hoarsely.

"The wounds match angel blades. Whatever demon did this thought Cas was still an angel," she explained.

"I can't let go of his gut," Dean said with rushed, frightened instructions. "Phone's in my back pocket. Get Sammy on speaker. Now!"

Simultaneously, Krissy fumbled with her own phone and pulled Dean's phone out of his pocket. She pulled Sam out of the contacts first. As soon as the call connected, she used her own phone to dial 911, it seemed. Jesus, Dean hadn't even thought that far. Sweat coated his face, not that he worked laboriously, but the fear had his nervous system in overdrive.

"Hello?" Sam answered.

In the hallway, Krissy's voice delivered calm descriptions of what she found and the address to the Winchester house.

"Sammy, get over here! Demons broke in my house!"

Stunned, Sam replied, "What?"

"Cas is stabbed! They took Lia! They took my baby!" Finally, the tears and choking terror erupted with having to say it out loud. It was real then. "Just get over here, Sammy!"


	9. Chapter 9

A florescent light gave off such a grating, incessant buzz over Dean's head that he seriously contemplated putting a bullet through the damn thing. At least that would mean shooting something--anything--even if it didn't help the situation. Instead, he got up and resumed pacing around the surgical waiting room. His hands tensed and flexed at his sides, itching to rip apart the hellspawn that brought such misery down upon his family. It was different than Sam getting hurt. He was a husband now. He was a father. And both of them slipped right through his fingers because he turned around for one minescule second.

"Sit down, Dean," urged Sam from the corner of the waiting room where he sat with Amina, Krissy, and the two remaining Winchester children.

"No," Dean snapped back.

He peaked through the glass doors at the nurse's station, looking for any sign of activity related to them. A dry erase board hung on the back wall and he saw Castiel's name scribbled in black marker along with a series of coded numbers that Amina had explained were references to the type of surgery he underwent. Nothing changed on the board since he last looked, though, and none of the nurses seemed the slightest bit rushed. They weren't, of course, in the operating room at that very moment.

Amina rose and stilled his pacing with a touch on his forearm. "You're going to exhaust yourself," she whispered.

"You sure about this hospital?" Dean asked again, ignoring any attempts people made at offering him comfort. "You sure about these doctors?"

She nodded. "I work here. Airlifting him here gave him the best chance."

A ragged sigh burned his chest and he scrubbed a hand down his face.

"Dean." Amina tugged his arm to get him to focus on her. "He may be your husband but he's my brother too. Airlifting was the best choice. I saw everything in the helicopter and his vitals were weak but they were stable." She'd already told him the details but she repeated it in an effort to keep him from dissolving into a full meltdown. "Critical and stable is a hell of a lot better than critical and unstable."

Suited men, three of them with a uniformed police officer, barged into the surgical waiting room and interrupted the moment. Dean couldn't decide if it was good or bad as he eyed them with typical Winchester suspicion reserved for all law enforcement.

"Mr. Winchester," greeted the lead detective without even a pretense of emotion.

"Have you found my daughter yet?" Dean asked in a monotone to hide his fear.

"No, but the FBI's working the scene carefully. I assure you."

The scene. How quickly his family's little home went from safe and filling with memories of a normal life to a crime scene like so many other crime scenes left in the wake of demon attacks. They could never, of course, tell the detectives and federal agents the real reason for the abduction but they could let them chase their tails investigating while the Winchesters went to the real work.

"This is Officer Billings. He'll be guarding you and your family for the duration of your time in this hospital," the lead detective continued. "I'm having another officer posted outside of Castiel's room once it's settled as well."

Dean glanced back at Sam, who's eyes communicated the same confusion he felt. He turned back to the detectives and said, "We don't really need all that."

"All due respect, Mr. Winchester, but with this level of media coverage, police guard is standard procedure. It's better for everyone involved."

"I'm sorry, what? Media scrutiny?"

The detective squinted, barely perceptible but the confusion showed itself. "You don't know?"

When Dean made no indication that he understood, the detective motioned for them to follow along and quickly left the recovery room. Krissy remained behind with the children as Sam and Amina flanked Dean, acting subconsciously as family protection. The three detectives charged ahead with Officer Billings bringing up the rear, his hand always placed on his gun holster. Dean had never seen that kind of police protection for stabbing victims or even in kidnapping cases. It unnerved him, making him wonder if the authorities knew something he did not. That uncertainty was uncharted territory for a Winchester since they were usually the ones who knew everything before the police did.

They reached the end of the surgical floor. A double set of windows overlooked downtown Kansas City but it wasn't the cityscape that had the detective's attention. He leaned close to the glass and pointed four stories below at the hospital's main entrance. Dean leaned in too, with Sam and Amina peering over each of his shoulders, where they made out a crowd milling around. Some carried television cameras on their shoulders with glossy, well-dressed reporters tethered to microphones. Others looked like bums in t-shirts and baseball hats with camcorders and digital cameras like tourists. A doctor in an official looking white lab coat left the hospital, instantly hounded by the television reporters and bums with handheld cameras even though he clearly had nothing to do with Castiel's treatment. Irritated, the doctor waved them off and hurried on his way. Then it dawned on Dean that it wasn't rubberneckers or tourists mixed in with television reporters. It was the paparazzi--the aggressive kind.

"Oh my goodness," breathed Amina over Dean's shoulder.

"That's why you've been assigned police guard," the detective explained. "Castiel's political connections have made him quite the public figure and public figures are easy targets for making enemies."

"He didn't have any enemies that I know of," Dean replied. At least no human enemies.

"That right winger senator guy though," interjected Sam.

Dean peered back at his brother, ready to admonish him for bringing up that dipshit, but then he stopped short at seeing the flicker in Sam's eyes. He was giving the police a trail to follow and trying to get Dean to go along with it. The quicker the detectives ran off on a wild goose chase, the faster the Winchester brothers could begin the real hunt for Dean's kidnapped daughter.

"Right. Senator Ashford," said Dean, backing him up.

Nodding, Sam's eyes shifted to the detectives. "Ashford and his cronies have been dragging Cas through the mud for years. They use every chance they get to trash him and try to discredit his charity."

The detective grabbed a notepad from his pocket and scribbled notes.

"It's all over the papers," Amina added. "Maybe one of his supporters took Lia."

"And why does Senator Ashford hold a grudge against Castiel?" the detective asked.

Dean cleared his throat, uncomfortable with the reason. "He doesn't like gay people." Technically, neither he nor Castiel were gay but he didn't feel up to explaining bisexuality to yet another person who might possibly have thought bisexuality didn't exist. "People supporting him have vandalized our house before and Castiel's offices too, so you better go read up on those police reports. They really stepped up the hate mongering when we adopted Lia because, y'know, obviously we're predators who should never have kids. We just never gave the bigots attention."

"They don't deserve attention," Amina sneered.

"Unfortunately, they do," countered the detective as he made notes. "Hate crimes against gays, women, the disabled, and racial minorities are very serious. I'll get my people right on this."

"Thanks," Dean said, looking down at the reporters again.

The detective nodded to the other two suits and then the cop. "Officer Billings, it's your watch. Call me when the vic's out of surgery."

"The vic has a name," mumbled Dean. His forehead rested on the window glass and he closed his eyes. "He's Castiel Winchester. He works sixty hours a week trying to give veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder a better life--something my father had too from fighting in 'Nam. He likes white wine because he's squeamish and he thinks red wine looks too much like blood. He tries to cook but he sucks at it. He watches the Kardashians and a million other trashy TV shows. He keeps wanting to go get a cat from the shelter but I said not until Lia can walk on her own. Sometimes he snores. He bitches when I leave wet towels on the bathroom floor. I get a dozen sappy romantic texts every day when he's pulling twelve hours at the office again. He's my husband and my child's father. It took a long time to be cool with our relationship. A long time. So if you call him the vic again, Detective, I'm gonna put your head through a wall."

Clearly uncertain about Dean's calm threat, the detective mumbled his apologies. Dean never looked back but he felt the police leave, all except the protection officer, who kept a respectful distance.

The shock began to bleed away, leaving Dean in a fog of uncertainty that dulled his senses. Sam and Amina spoke to him but they sounded distant like voices fed through metal cans. He became aware of gentle hands taking him by the arms and leading him away from the fourth floor window before the reporters and paparazzi below recognized the pale face of Castiel Winchester's husband. Sam propelled Dean toward the surgical waiting room once more, while Amina strolled alongside him with her arm looped around his elbow. She watched him as his eyes followed the line between tiles on the floor but she never peppered him with questions or syrupy sweet words of encouragement. She was a Winchester as much as Castiel was.

The guard officer stood outside of the waiting room, while Dean took a seat on the opposite corner from his family. Everything in his body grew heavier with the weariness of worry, yet he couldn't make himself think about his baby girl for more than a few moments at a time. Recalling the flush of pink in her cheeks or the twinkling blue of her wide, innocent eyes ripped him to shreds from the inside and then the questions arrived. Was she hungry? Was she cold? Was she crying for her daddies?

Leaning forward with his elbows on his thighs, Dean rubbed his face. He couldn't drown out the sound of his crying baby out there somewhere in demonic hands. Thinking of Castiel in surgery for more than five hours by that point came no easier for him either. Losing even one of them would break his soul. Losing both of them made him find nothing in life worth living for, not even Sam or his children. He knew Sam and Amina watched him like a time bomb ready to explode even as they played with their Bobby to keep him from getting cranky. Krissy openly stared through eyes lacking any sense of emotion--not that she didn't care but a hunter learned quickly to set aside feelings that distracted from the job. She already considered the attack on Dean's family a job that was her responsibility, it seemed. He took a slow, deep breath and dropped his face toward his lap with his arms curled back over his head. It was the only think he could do aside from slaughtering scores of demons, which, he admitted, appealed to the rage barely contained in his chest.

"Got a text from western Missouri hunters," Sam announced unobtrusively.

Dean's face shot up, questioning his brother. "And?"

"No unusual activity," he reported as his thumb scrolled through the phone. "No omens. no mutilated cattle, nothing. At least out that direction. I'm asking every other hunter in my contacts now."

Following suit, Amina unzipped her brown leather purse and switched on her phone. "I know a few fallen--I mean," she paused, looking up, "my own people. I know a few of them. If there's anything strange going on, they'd sure notice it before other people would even think to ask questions." Her fingers deftly tapped out text messages with the speed of a woman who had been using smartphones her entire life.

"I think we need to reach out to friends," Sam suggested cryptically.

"Like who?" asked Dean, too mentally exhausted to decipher hunter riddles.

"Friends from the war," his brother replied.

Amina agreed. "Especially the one I didn't like so much."

Suddenly Dean understood they referenced the goddesses, namely Bastet, the Egyptian goddess who resembled a cross between a woman and a cat. She'd been assigned to guard Dean during the Goddess Mary's war for independence back when she was still the Virgin Mary and Castiel was still a duty-bound angel. Keeping a goddess around who took on the form of a black cat or a feline woman at will unnerved Amina, who was afraid of cats in general, but Dean admitted to bonding with his celestial guardian. Bastet saved his life more than once and he saved hers. They had actually bonded and she left him with the means to summon her again if he ever needed help.

"I'm gonna have to get back into my house to do that and it ain't gonna be easy if it's a crime scene." Still, Dean's hands rubbed his jeans, anxious to have a plan.

"We used to do that all the time," Sam reminded him. "It'll come back to you. Or I can go in if you want."

"Or me," Krissy offered too.

Rustling at the waiting room's door distracted all of them. A nurse in blue surgical scrubs strode in with a cap on her head and a stainless steel chart clipboard gripped in one hand, looking much like she'd just left an operating room. No smile illuminated her features. Dean's stomach lurched as he jumped upright out of his chair.

"Are you the domestic partner?" she questioned.

"Husband," Dean corrected. "That's me."

"Yes, all right. Mr. Winchester, I'm Dr. Hammond. I operated on Castiel today."

So she was the surgeon, not a nurse. A fleeting sense of apology passed through him for the sexist thought but in truth he simply didn't have the energy to comment on it. They shook hands and he introduced Dr. Hammond to the rest of his family, all while a police officer stood guard just beyond the door.

Once they sat in a clump around the surgeon, she explained where things stood. "Castiel survived the procedure. He's in recovery right now and a nurse will take you back to see him one or two at a time for a few minutes as soon as he's more stable." She paused as if she knew Dean needed a moment to breathe and accept that treasured piece of good news. "The minor wound in the shoulder will heal up with only a little scarring around the fleshy region here. He may lose some use of his left arm for the moment but physical therapy should help him regain full function once he's recovered enough to cross that bridge."

"Were any ligament severed?" asked Amina, ever the nurse.

"No, he got lucky in that regard. It was a rather straight-on puncture wound," Dr. Hammond replied, marking the trajectory through her own shoulder with her pen. "There is, however, quite a lot of muscle in that part of the body."

Nodding, Amina said, "Yeah, I'm a nurse downstairs in the ER."

"Oh okay." The doctor nodded as well and a bit of a more human expression came over her countenance. She continued with the update. "The second stab wound in the abdomen was much more complicated. Police haven't found the weapon from what I gather but I can tell you it was a long, narrow blade. He lost quite a lot of blood because the weapon went through abdomen at such a harsh angle. It went through the lower right section of his belly facing an upward direction toward his stomach as if the assailant got to him from an underhanded trajectory. I couldn't save a portion of his large intestine but the blood loss is a big concern at the moment. Additionally, his abdominal muscles over that area were terribly injured, however, the internal bleeding has been resolved. Now our main concern is the risk of infection since the bowel wound opened into his abdominal cavity. Whoever did this to him intended to kill, not just injure, but he fought back. There are defensive wounds all over his hands and along his inner forearms. His will to survive is astounding and it will help him in the recovery process."

"Is he gonna make it?" Dean asked. In truth, he barely heard the meandering explanation of Castiel's wounds, still working through the shock.

"The next twenty-four to forty-eight hours will make or break his chances for survival," replied Dr. Hammond. "I cannot tell you not to worry, Mr. Winchester, but I can tell you that we're doing everything we can for him."

It was such a cold, standard answer that Dean no longer trusted the doctor. His attention shifted to Amina instead. Hands knotted with Sam on the opposite side didn't stop her from reaching over and lacing fingers through Dean's with her free hand. He let her do it despite his body wanting to recoil altogether from comfort as if he blamed himself and thought he didn't deserve family support.

Dr. Hammond glanced at the clock on her beeper. "You know what--I'll just take you back to his ICU bed myself. We decided against moving him more than necessary, so he went straight from surgery to intensive care." She stood, tucking her stainless steel clipboard under her arm. "I can take one or two at a time for a few minutes."

In the next instant, Sam stood and the others followed. He murmured something to Krissy, who nodded willingly. "You go," he told Dean, "and let Mina go with you. I'm gonna take Krissy and the boys to get ... uh ... the thing for the thing. We'll step up the search. Cas needs you guys. Lia needs us." Sam's jaw clenched and his deep hazel eyes darkened with a sharp nod that Krissy mimicked as she stooped to zip up Bobby's jacket and hang Henry's car seat over her arm. Neither of them were going to let Dean argue. They clearly had a plan.

"Wait," Dean said, hazy in mind, as he grabbed the doctor's pen and scribbled a numeric combination on the palm of Sam's hand. "Empty out the safe in the basement. It's all there. Everything we're gonna need."

"I'll get you some new clothes too," offered Krissy.

Dean peered down at Castiel's blood splattered on his shirt and jeans. He realized for the first time that he'd been walking around covered in dark, shiny stains from trying to perform first aid on his husband.

"Meet us at the family house in a few hours," he instructed.

"Got it." Nodding, Sam bent to give his wife a tight, sincere embrace and a kiss.

Parting ways with half of his family left Dean feeling unusually exposed. He followed the surgeon without a word, grateful that Amina didn't appear to feel like talking either. Where Krissy channeled her feelings into working the job and Sam's loyalty to the family kept him on the steady course, perhaps it was Dean and Amina who stood to lose the most. That mutual dread put them in such a new position shifted from in-laws to honest siblings without the slightest measure of pretense that might have forced them into niceties and promises that everything would be okay. He reached out and took her hand as they rode the elevator to the intensive care unit two floors above the surgical wing of the hospital. Nothing made him appreciate Amina more than her honest silence even though he clearly saw the fear in her eyes. She didn't try to push him to keep up a positive attitude. It wouldn't have made a difference if she had.

"Billings to Rotterham. Over."

Dean hardly noticed the protection officer following them until he spoke on his two-way radio.

Static answered the officer, followed by the detective's voice. "Go for Rotterham. Over."

"Sir, Winchester survived surgery. Moving to ICU now. Over," said Officer Billings.

"10-4. Requesting backup now. Over and out."

The protection officer fell into silence again as if he knew his presence required a certain level of sensitivity.

As Dr. Hammond escorted them through the labyrinth of corridors, she began to explain Castiel's condition in greater detail. "You will find Castiel lying flat with a tube in his throat to help him breathe. He won't be able to talk until he's breathing on his own and the breathing tube is removed."

"Is he awake?" Dean asked, wondering if Castiel even knew Lia was gone.

"No. I elected to keep him under sedation for the time being to give his body a chance to be still and begin healing," she explained as they came to a wide set of double doors where she typed in a security code to gain access. "He certainly won't be awake tonight and probably not tomorrow night either."

"Oh, okay...." Dean didn't know how he felt about that but it was probably for the best.

The nucleus of the intensive care unit laid out in a square giving nurses a view of each room through glass windows and doors. Some rooms were shielded by curtains but most laid patients out on display with their still bodies hooked up to every type of tube and wire. Concerned relatives gathered around some beds speaking in hushed tones, but most rooms appeared cold and clinical without a visitor in sight. It bothered Dean in a way that intensive care units hadn't affected him in the past, maybe because of the vulnerability in being married and trying to have a normal family.

"Just this way." Dr. Hammond rounded the nurse's station past four occupied rooms.

They'd set Castiel up in a corner room and Officer Billings quietly shut the glass door when Dean and Amina went inside, standing guard just outside with a hand on his holster. Dean knew that diligent cop couldn't protect them from demons but he would certainly alert them to strange visitors at least.

Low lighting suggested the sensitivity of Castiel's condition even though his only movement came from the breathing machine feeding life-giving air into his lungs. Dean hesitated as Dr. Hammond checked his IV line and examined the state of her surgical work around his abdomen. It didn't faze Amina, being a nurse herself, and she dropped her purse on an empty chair and flew to her brother's bedside. She said nothing at first, only looking him over with tears spilling down her cheeks, which only stiffened Dean more solidly near the door. It wasn't his Castiel lying there. His Castiel checked his phone for new messages every fifteen minutes. His Castiel never sat still. His Castiel always greeted him with hello Dean and a particular shine in his blue eyes. There in that bed, Dean couldn't even see his eyes under the heavy blanket of medical sedation, antibiotics, painkillers, and careful monitoring by stranger nurses and doctors.

"The antibiotics should head off any infection trying to take hold from the perfed bowel," Dr. Hammond told Amina in low tones.

"Were the drugs pushed before surgery?" asked Amina, wiping tears away with one hand and gripping Castiel's fingers with the other.

Dr. Hammond nodded. "Yes, the first line went in downstairs."

"My nurses down there are good." Reassuring herself with a nod seemed to make Amina take a shaky breath. "I want him taken off the vent as soon as he's brought out of sedation. This is something I'm going to insist on, doctor."

"Why?" pressed Dean. The women looked his way suddenly as if they momentarily forgot about him. Defensively, he folded his arms over his chest and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Don't make decisions for him without me. He's my husband."

"And he's my brother!" snapped Amina. She recoiled immediately. The tension wore her down, it seemed.

A cool, calm tone emerged from Dean's mouth. "Then tell me about the tube thing so we can decide this stuff together."

"Mr. Winchester," interjected Dr. Hammond, clearing her throat to break the tension. "Your sister-in-law is concerned about the risk of permanant damage to the vocal cords. Leaving a patient on a vent too long comes with certain risks such as volutrauma and ventilator-associated pneumonia. Complications from the endotracheal tube itself include hard and soft palate injuries, laryngeal dysfunction, tracheal stenosis, tracheomalacia, and near-fatal or fatal obstruction. Mrs. Winchester is quite right in insisting that Castiel be removed from the vent as soon as he's able to maintain his own regular breathing. My concern is taking him off too soon and risking the deprivation of oxygen to the brain."

"Okay," Dean replied in a drawn out syllable. "I don't know what any of that means except pneumonia and pneumonia kills people. How long is that tube gonna be in there?"

"When he comes out of sedation, we can revisit when to remove it," the surgeon replied. Her beeper blared on her hip and she tilted it up to read the screen.

"Tomorrow or the next day," Amina softly translated for him. "Don't worry. That's well within the window of safety."

"I have to get to my next patient. I'm telling the nurses to give you fifteen minutes but you'll have to go after that. You can come back in the morning but no children and no unnecessary bags or clothing layers. Ask the nurses to page me if you have any questions in the meantime." As she spoke, Dr. Hammond swept past Dean and squirted hand sanitizer from a container mounted to the wall. "Always sanitize when you enter and leave the room."

"Thank you, doctor," offered Amina for the both of them. Left alone in the hospital room with the incessant beeping of the heart monitor and airy sweeping through the ventilator created new tension as if they were the only ones watching over Castiel. Amina stretched a hand out to him, using a comforting voice. "Come here. You can touch him. He's asleep but research suggests he could feel you and hear you too."

Dean hesitated, still hovering near the door. She didn't understand. He knew Castiel as an indestructible force of nature for so long that seeing him in that condition terrified him. No, he wasn't proud of it. In actuality, his thoughts spun with self-loathing insults about what a pussy he was being in that moment. Charging ahead into stupid danger meant very little before he gave up most of his hunter life to build a family with that stunning force of nature wrestled into submission in that bed. He did it without thinking for the whole of his life. A dry mouth felt like sandpaper when he swallowed and he raked a hand over his ragged hair.

"If he doesn't.... If Lia doesn't...."

"Dean," she interrupted more firmly. "Come over here and hold your husband's hand. You need to be strong. He needs you to live for both of you for the moment. Now get it together, come over here, take his hand, and tell him you love him. We don't have much time. I love you but suck it up."

The verbal ass kicking sounded so much like Sam that it jerked Dean out of his fog. He sucked a hard breath and managed to remember what the surgeon said about hand sanitizer. Before he got any closer, he squirted the clear goop in his palm and thoroughly rubbed away the bacteria he imagined covered him. It occurred to him that his natural aversion to germs would serve him quite well as long as Castiel was in the hospital.

But as he approached the side of the bed opposite Amina, the thought cracked him over the head that Castiel wouldn't need to lie there so long if Dean found him better help. He'd summon a host of angels until one agreed to heal those horrifying stab wounds and--looking down at Castiel's hands--the defensive cuts and bruises that told a revolting story of his fight to save their child. Uncertain of how Amina would react to that plan, he decided to keep his cards close to his chest until he found an angel. At the very least, he intended to cajole Bastet until she either agreed to help him or tell him to fuck off. The world grew a lot bigger than just his own selfish life since he began building his own family. They mattered more than anything.

"Sam texted," whispered Amina. "He said the press know all of our faces and names and to be careful when we leave."

Dean nodded but he didn't give a shit about photographers. He knew an attempted murder and kidnapping because of what looked like hate crimes against the gay community made for a feeding frenzy on television. They could believe whatever they wanted as long as throwing off the trail allowed hunters to chase the real attackers.

Bending down, Dean's forearms rested on the hospital bed railing and he stared at Castiel's unconscious face for any signs of recognition. He squeezed Castiel's left hand but realized something was missing.

"They took his wedding ring," he blurted, stunned and angry.

Amina peered over her brother. "Why? Maybe the nurses did it before surgery."

"No," Dean said, "they took it. Our rings were blessed by a witch on the honeymoon. She put a spell on them to help us find each other if we got separated."

"Like magic tracking devices," she ventured.

"Yeah. Shit. I gotta remember the tracking spell. Maybe it'll lead us to these dicks."

Suspicion darkened Amina's eyes. "Or maybe it's a trap."

"Maybe," Dean acknowledged, "but I have to try."


	10. Chapter 10

"Duck in close. Keep your head down," Dean instructed.

"Don't say anything to them," murmured Amina.

Trying to leave the hospital that night after holding vigil at Castiel's bedside seemed more like jumping into a shark tank than strolling out to Amina's waiting car. Dean wrapped a protective arm around her shoulders and she ducked her head into his chest. He bent his head as well, giving them the look of a half embrace as he led them through the hospital doors. Their protection officer could only do so much to fend off the photographers. Instantly they swarmed until a horde moved in a solid mass with Dean and Amina at the eye of the hurricane. Silence became their armor through the barrage of questions. Snippets hit his ears but bounced off without truly computing in his brain. He couldn't absorb the weirdness of the moment and let his mind drift away just to preserve the last ounces of his sanity.

"Mr. Winchester! Is it true your baby was kidnapped by anti-LGBTQ activists?"

"What time did Castiel die? Mr. Winchester!"

That one made Amina flinch. He suspected the reporter spewed that awful lie in hopes of getting an emotional reaction out of them for the cameras. The vultures circled. Slowly the protection officer led them through the melee to the safety of Amina's car. Hospital staff had brought it around for them, deciding it was safer than making them trek through the parking garage with photographers in pursuit.

"Almost there," he whispered only for his sister-in-law to hear.

Dean blocked the passenger seat with his bulky frame so the photographers couldn't get a clear shot as Amina climbed into her SUV. She never lifted her eyes and buckled her seatbelt with a shaky nod to let him know she was ready. He shut her in the vehicle and turned to make his way around the front to the driver's side.

"What do you say to the allegations that the kidnapping of your daughter was staged to bring attention to your husband's floundering organization?"

The reporter recoiled as soon as the words fell out of his mouth, knowing by Dean's stony posture that he had crossed a rather violent line. Disbelief flooded his body, though he didn't know how long the moment carried out, glaring at that reporter, but his countenance stunned the rest of the mob into relative silence. It didn't matter if it was an actual rumor out there in the papers or TV, or if the reporter made it up on the spot to get a reaction out of him. Suggesting he put his beloved child in danger for attention sent Dean spiraling into the kind of blinding rage that he hadn't felt since his drinking days.

His tightly coiled fist whipped through the air and pounded that reporters face without the slightest hint of remorse. As the reporter stumbled back and toppled onto the sidewalk, stunned silence fell over the crowd until a man toward the back began shouting about assault. Soon more voices joined in and the reporters turned on Dean, waving their fists and filming the injured man still lying on the ground clutching his face.

The last thing Dean saw as his protection officer shoved him into the SUV was that mob of photographers feeding on one of their own. Cameras turned down to the injured man and he lifted his hands to block his face from being filmed. Parasites always fed on themselves in the end. Smug and feeling quite good about the discharge of gunpowder in Dean's body, he stuck the key in the ignition with one hand and flexed the fingers of his other hand. Punching that guy across the cheekbone ripped the flesh across Dean's knuckles and he bled onto his clothes. It wasn't much but droplets melted into Castiel's dried blood splattered on his jeans.

"Well, Mr. Winchester, you just guaranteed yourself a spot on every local news broadcast in the morning." The cop named Billings shook his head as he strapped himself in the backseat between two car seats.

"Maybe now they'll think twice about hounding my family," Dean replied without regret.

"Not likely," Billings said regretfully. "I ought to arrest you for assault because you know that's what it was but under the circumstances…."

"I'm glad you hit him," whispered Amina.

Dean fell into silence as he paid the parking pass and left the hospital grounds, only glancing back in the rearview mirror with hopes that Castiel would not wake while he was gone. It was better, he had decided, for Castiel to remain unconscious through the first hours of hunting down their daughter and the demons who did this to them. He also needed time to work on his plan, which he had not told anyone about, and would not until it was done. He didn't need anyone trying to talk him out of it. What needed to be done seemed spelled out so clearly to him that arguing about it was just a waste of time when he wasn't going to be dissuaded.

"The detective has you and your sister-in-law stashed in the Hyatt across town for your own safety, Mr. Winchester," announced Billings the cop in the backseat. "I'll leave you there and return for you in the morning. I assume you'll want to come back to the hospital."

"Yeah," Dean replied effortlessly, realizing it was better to go along with whatever the detective decided for them. As soon as he ditched the cop and had Amina safely put in a room, he'd get to work.

*****

Sam paced the only like the corridor in the bunker that had decent cell phone reception. He'd gone through his contacts twice already looking for any name that might pop out to him and offer some kind of help. Nobody reported anything out of the ordinary--at least not hunters--and that in itself struck him as a hint of what was really going on. Demons knew better than to leave footprints behind for Winchesters to find.

"Any news?" Krissy join him in the corridor. She carried an open book large enough to shield her entire torso.

"Nothing," replied Sam darkly. "I feel like I need to go out and drive around or something. What good is that gonna do though? It's not like demons would take one of our kids to some evil liar out in the open. No. This feels way too professional. Too high up in their chain of command."

"Well, I might have something to help. I was looking around at tracking spells in the library. I thought maybe there was something to find a specific human out there somewhere. I didn't find anything like that though." Krissy pulled the book back from her body and studied one of the pages. "What I did find is how to extract information from a person who has previously been possessed by a demon and survived. Apparently they leave behind traces of themselves inside the person and those traces contain information, sort of like human DNA, but in sulfur form."

The idea swirled through Sam's head and he ceased his pacing to face her with a hand on his hip and another clutching his phone. "Wait a minute. I went through something like this already. With Cas. I was an angel vessel for a while and angels leave behind pieces of grace in the people they use just like you're talking about here. You're saying the same thing can be done for demons with their sulfur?"

Her finger extended up, making her look rather scholarly. "Almost. Not exactly. What you're talking about was for tracking an angel, looking for its location. This is a little bit different. We can actually tap into what's left of the demon in a person and draw out the information. Literally making the person read it out loud. All demonic orders are imprinted on whatever they're made up of--we don't actually know aside from sulfur traces--but if there are orders about Lia known to all of demonkind, we can read them through a person who has been possessed."

Nodding, Sam felt his mind speed up. "Okay. I've been possessed a couple of times. So has Dean. What do we do? Let's do this now." He stuffed his phone in his pocket and unbuttoned the cuff of his flannel shirt, rolling his sleeves up his forearms.

"Not recent enough. The more recent a person has been possessed, the stronger the imprint is. I assume whatever happened with the baby getting kidnapped has been since she was born, which was not that long ago. How old is she again? Eight months? We need someone who has been possessed in the last eight months." As she spoke, she turned the pages of her book, searching for more accurate information.

"Amanda," blurted Sam. "She was possessed by a demon who was creeping around Dean's house."

Krissy's head snapped up. She nodded sharply. "Let's go get her."

The two of them flew into action. They packed up Sam's sleeping children in the car and decided to drive separately to protect them. Krissy drove the vehicle containing his precious little ones while he drove an empty vehicle to collect Amanda from the sanctuary of her home. She hadn't left the house often since recovering from her possession but there really wasn't a choice in the matter. If he had to, Sam intended to convince her by force. He would never hurt a woman but his little baby niece was somewhere out there with demons. Nobody ever gave up on him and he refused to give up on that baby. Just as important, he refused to give up on Dean and Castiel. A Winchester simply didn't quit on family. They did whatever it took to keep them together, to keep them safe, even if it meant dragging a woman back to the bunker kicking and screaming.

*****

The chaos of the day separated Dean from his beloved car but he intended to rectify that problem before the night crept into a new day. The only way to get Amina to stay put in the hotel and let him go unaccompanied was to confide his plan in her. She protested and pleaded with him to reach out to Sam for help, of course, but he refused to be swayed. In the end, she handed over her keys and promised to stay put in their adjoining rooms for her own safety.

First thing was first though. Dean parked Amina's SUV in her own driveway and made the walk through the neighborhood back to the scene of devastation. The house loomed near the block corner surrounded by yellow crime scene tape with the Impala parked askewed into the lawn. He ducked under the yellow border, instantly regretting how his haste dragged Baby's right front tire across the irises Castiel had planted the previous summer. Crushed flowers scraped at his nerves. He turned his back, regretting it so deeply knowing Castiel could die that easily too, and he made his way into the darkened house with barely an upward glance. Finding his keys meant retracing his steps through the horror of finding his child gone and his husband grievously wounded. He located the car keys tossed aside on the hallway floor upstairs against a baseboard sticky with dried blood.

Jaw clenched, Dean passed through the scene of the crime into Lia's nursery. It was the last thing he wanted to do but he needed a few provisions he'd hidden in her closet before she was born. He avoided looking at the empty, shredded crib and dropped to his knees, pushing open the folding doors and shoving boxes aside. The carpet edge gave way easily and he lifted the floorboard beneath it. Dust floated up from the depths of a dark hole where Dean's hand plunged and groped around until his fingertips encountered cool glass. One vial of glowing bluish-white light and then a second vial passed into his other hand, drawing him so enticingly that he knew in seconds which one was meant for him. Castiel's grace lay in the palm of his hand butted up against a vial Mother Mary created of his own grace. He slipped them into his jeans pocket since they weren't what he sought beneath those floorboards but he didn't feel comfortable leaving them in the house anymore either. Digging under the floor brought out a cedar box containing the second part of the tools to summon Bastet. Not even Sam knew the full process, though he got the bracelet out of the safe, nor did he know where the grace vials were hidden. Only Castiel knew.

The sooner he escaped the nightmares lingering in that house, the better. He collected everything he needed and rushed out of the front door to the sanctuary of his Impala, the one place where he felt safe no matter what kind of storm raged around him. As he pulled away and got on the road toward Lebanon, he decided it wasn't possible to go back into his own home until someone washed away all evidence of the demonic attack. He couldn't do it again.

When Dean got to the bunker after a few hours of peace on the road, he found it empty. No Sam, no Krissy, not even Bobby or Henry. He was on the point of calling his brother when he spotted the hasty note they left behind on an open book in the library. They found a way to pry information out of demons if he understood it right. Dean wanted to feel the sense of relief with new information but he knew nothing would feel good again until he had Lia in his arms and Castiel healthy and happy. And the second he got his hands on those hell-dicks, they'd know just what it meant to go after the Righteous Man.

Dean descended lower into the bunker carrying the cedar box and the bracelet Sam had retrieved from the safe. His mind reeled through the steps Bastet had given him when they parted ways five years before should he need help again. If their bond was as true as she declared, she had to come forward. Castiel's life depended on it.

Four anointed candles lay in the cedar box, which Dean set up in a squared formation on an open floor space. He struck a match to each wick but leaped back as the flames turned black and blasted toward the ceiling. Falling back on his hands, he stared at the flames in astonishment and expected the goddess to appear in the center of the candle formation without the remainder of the summoning ceremony. Soon the flames receded to that of normal candles, albeit topped by entirely black fire. He scrambled upright again and wrapped the gold binding chain around his wrist, but before he closed the clasp, he grabbed the papyrus scroll in the cedar box and rose to his full height. She'd left the summoning spell there written in both hieroglyphs and English.

Clearing his throat, Dean read aloud in a reverent voice. "Dear Lady Bastet. Shining, bright one. Goddess of Egypt. Deity of the moon. I call thee down from the stars to guide and protect me."

That said, he turned his arm inward to his abdomen and closed the clasp. Gold chain curled snugly around the arm until he couldn't wriggle it off without breaking it, which, of course, was impossible. The bond sealed around his soul just as it had five years ago in such awful circumstances when he thought things couldn't get any worse. In truth, he'd rather fight his way through war after war in Heaven again than face his life suffocating without Castiel or Lia.

Black smoke billowed through the floor as if air easily flowed through concrete. He stood back, unwilling to risk getting blasted by shooting black fire again. The spiritual bond laced around his soul as the smoke curled and twisted upward, eventually taking on a feminine shape.

Golden eyes, elongated like a feline, materialized through the dark fog and shined like the gold of an Egyptian mask. Life flowed into the cat's gaze as the outline of a strong jawline and full, African features became flesh. Svelte and soundless, Bastet appeared there in the bunker basement, only the faintest recognition in her eyes. Her pupils widened, dilating with the harsh fluorescent lights overhead, and maybe even a little bit of affection for Dean. It was all right. They had grown to care for each other in the quiet, spiritual way that defied the boundaries of the universe.

"It does me good to see you, Dean," she said after a moment, the black smoke drawing into her body like a vacuum.

"Yeah," he replied. "Me too."

As she spoke, pointed white feline teeth caught the light. "You're troubled."

"Don't you know about what's going on?"

Her shoulders offered a subtle shrug. "We gods and goddesses have been relegated to our own domains since you and I last met. Your own Queen Mary decreed it so." She strolled a path around the anointed candles and extinguished them by only flattening her palm over the flames. "She is the mother of all now, you know. Even we lesser goddesses. We kept our power and our own faithful numbers, of course, but Queen Mary and Queen Isis, drawing the most human followers, obtained greater influence. So here we are, like princes and princesses of a shared realm. Not even the Christian god gets involved." A light sneer pulled at her lips. "A defeated god requires centuries to heal the shattered ego. The point is, Dean, you fall into Queen Mary's realm and I have not kept up with the events of your life."

It unsettled Dean if he was honest with himself. "Is she becoming ... bad?"

"No, no, nothing like that. On the contrary, the two high queens decided to give each of the lower gods and goddesses our own domains in order to prevent future cosmic wars. If we all have room to breathe, as they say, then more innocent humans won't have to die for our causes."

And breathe he did. At least with relief knowing he put his faith in a goddess willing to pursue real justice in the universe. "Bastet, I need help."

"I can see that," she said evenly.

"I married the angel. Cas. We adopted a baby. Her name's Lia."

Bastet nodded, giving nothing away of how much she knew or didn't know.

"The demons. They attacked my family last night. My daughter's been taken and Cas was hurt so bad that he might still die." Saying it out loud for the first time strangled Dean with such abrupt ferocity that he stumbled and his eyes watered. He folded his fist against his mouth, taking a minute to steady his raw nerves.

"Keep going," Bastet urged in a quieter voice.

He took a breath. "We think the demons want some artifacts we got a few weeks ago. Another hunter--Krissy--she swiped a bunch of stuff about Jesus, Mary Magdalene, and their kids. Some of the stuff has power to the demons, I guess, and--"

Bastet's golden eyes shimmered in the artificial light as they fell to the floor. She rubbed her palms together in tight, slow circles and drew in an uneasy breath as if she understood everything he referenced. The foreboding in her presence made her look entirely too human for Dean's taste after experiencing her power as a goddess firsthand. She shook her head, chunks of bluntly cut black hair falling around her face.

"What?" he demanded.

"Queen Mary reached an agreement with both the King of Heaven--god--and the Queen of Hell--the one you know as Abaddon. Crowley was ousted very recently. There was a truce between realms that he agreed to years ago as well. Lower gods and goddesses are not to be involved in disputes between Heaven and Hell, which is what this is, truly. It's a dispute over artifacts. The terms of the truce do not allow for my direct involvement where the kidnapping is concerned because the demons are most certainly holding your daughter for ransom."

"I don't have that shit anymore!" Spinning and suddenly enraged, Dean hurled his fist through the wall only to remind himself that he'd already injured his hand when he punched the photographer. Panting, he leaned over and let the silence close in. "Since when do you follow rules? You remember the shit we did to get Mother Mary her throne and to save Cas?" He studied the cat-goddess, a creature that should have intimidated him but all he saw was her domestication. Eyes narrowed, he stepped closer. "What's Mother Mary got over you?"

"Queen Isis," corrected Bastet with a jerk of her chin. "My queen is Isis. Keeping our faithful numbers means keeping our power and we must tow the line, Dean. Peace beyond humanity is a delicate balance. As you would say, this is above your pay grade."

"Peace in the universe," he scoffed. "Are you insane? You think Crowley gave a shit about the peace deals all you gods and goddesses made? Do you think Abaddon gives a shit?"

"He signed the treaty, Dean. Four years ago. We were all there."

"And what happens when one of you starts dicking around even after signing that magical little treaty, huh? You just gonna let Abaddon piss all over your queens?"

"When one party of our peace proceedings goes against the terms, the rest of us rise up against the offender until they comply," Bastet explained in a monotone that suggested her patience ran thin. "None of us may act alone. I know you're accustomed to rogue behavior but the universe has changed since you've devoted yourself to family life. There's a diplomatic structure to the universe now."

"Fuck diplomacy! They stole my child from her bed! They tried to kill Cas!" Renewed raged pumped through his veins and poured out of his mouth in undue venom at his longtime friend.

Bastet's elongated pupils shrank as if making herself appear more like a lioness agitated beyond the point of restraint. "If you desire the support of Queen Mary or any of us signed to the alliance, you will not act without approval. This is not only about you, Dean. The demons are only exploiting weaknesses close to the holy artifacts. Step back from your rage and grief, my boy, and glimpse the wider picture. I know what those artifacts mean to their power and you must know too or we wouldn't be standing here right now. It would be catastrophic beyond repair for the King of Hell to acquire that surge of power--beyond your child and beyond your husband. Millions of lives, Dean. Need I remind you of the Holocaust? The Black Plague? You do not act without Queen Mary's hand to shield you. Do we understand each other?"

Dean's jaw clenched. "Yes," he growled.

"Where are the artifacts now?"

"I gave them to the gold triplets," replied Dean. When Bastet didn't appear to understand, he clarified the description. "Mother Mary's handmaidens."

"Oh, I see," she said, somewhat relieved. "Good. At least the artifacts are beyond Abaddon's reach then."

He gaped. "Good? There's nothing good about the hell dicks having Lia."

"Of course. I know." Bastet ran through a score of unspoken thoughts. She commenced a slinking, creeping path around the bunker basement as if it fueled her mind. If her form had been true, a tail might have curled along behind her through the skirt of her white linen gown. "I cannot help Castiel--"

"--Excuse me?"

She snapped around and hissed, displaying a warning of two fanged teeth. "Silence."

Dean recoiled against his natural will to appear stoic and impervious to inhuman creatures making threats. He eyed her, never backing down from saving his family, but gave her the silence she demanded.

"I cannot help Castiel," she began again, "because I am not a healer. Brigid is the one we must summon, though it may take some convincing. She commonly reserves her power for females. As I recall, you did not see eye to eye when last you saw each other but we'll attempt it nonetheless, for Castiel's sake. Mind you, there's nothing we can do about your infant until Queen Mary offers us direction." She tapped a clawed fingernail on her lower lip in consideration. "Celtic goddess are difficult to summon."

The slightest pinhole of hope shined through the blackness surrounding Dean with the possibility that Castiel might be saved. He raked weary fingers through his hair and breathed in the moment to refocus his mind.

"I've got stuff here to tell us how to summon just about anything," he said. "Brigid's a fairly known deity. This is Sam's area but I think we can handle it."

"And how is your brother?"

"Fine. Got two kids now." Dean wasted no time as they talked, moving with the cat-goddess upstairs toward the library. "He's out chasing a lead right now. Tracking down information on the demons." He eyed her and braced himself for the hissing angry cat warning again. "What, no complaints?"

"Seeking information is quite different than your style of bursting into Hell with guns blazing," she said, taking his arm in a queenly manner.

"Noted," he muttered through a faint smirk. "Let's go get Brigid on the bat phone."


	11. Chapter 11

Thick red hair surrounded Brigid's round Irish face, all carefully tucked into the hood of a cerulean blue cloak. Dean tried talking her out of wearing that long white dress cinched at the waist with a girdle more common to the Dark Ages than the twenty-first century, but she was just as stubborn and full of fire as the last time they encountered each other. He acquiesced for Castiel's sake but quietly decided to say she'd rushed home from a renaissance fair when she heard the news. That sounded more plausible than bringing a goddess to the ICU for a healing.

"So, um, thanks for answering our call," Dean attempted.

All business, Brigid held out her hand. "Give me your arm. So long as you touch me, those fiends cannot see you pass by them."

"Yes, cloaking is a good idea," Bastet agreed, eyeing the reporters gathered across the parking lot at the hospital entrance despite it being the middle of the night. She took Dean's other arm. "You'll have a far more difficult time explaining my appearance anyhow. I doubt felines are welcome in these sterile healing environments. We are sacred beings nonetheless."

"You'd be right." Though nervous, Dean allowed himself a little smile. "Cas always wanted to have a cat too."

Bastet lifted her chin. "Then I approve of your selection in matrimony."

Dean expected the reporters to swarm as he made his way into the hospital with two odd-looking goddesses on his arms, yet not a single camera lifted his way. In fact, as they rounded a clump of men dressed in baseball hats and sweatpants, the fluttering edge of Brigid's skirt passed right through a photographer's leg. He finally accepted how thoroughly the two immortal beings shielded him from mortal eyes that meant to hound him and prod him for soundbites to put on the evening news. Still, he dropped his eyes to the ground, which crossed into the tiled hospital floor through the lobby and the cheap elevator carpet soon after that. He accepted their silence with quiet gratitude.

"It's this way," he mumbled, tugging the immortals down a long corridor.

Lights dimmed to allow patients to sleep in the silent hours of night, yet the effect ended up creating a haunted aura around beds barely illuminated by monitors and blinking lights. Dean hurried along and Bastet and Brigid drifted by his sides without making a sound of footfalls on the floor.

"Oh," breathed Brigid abruptly. She narrowed her eyes as if she sensed aomething Dean couldn't feel.

In turn, Bastet peered at her sister deity and opened her attention, picking up on the scent. "We approach," she whispered.

"Yeah," replied Dean as if receiving obvious information. "Right around the corner."

"His soul is fighting," Brigid said calmly.

Nodding, Bastet carried on the observation and picked up the pace. "He's trapped under a shroud of forced unconsciousness. His soul rages."

"We must hurry," added the Celtic healer.

The women darted ahead of Dean. A rush of wind left him behind in a quiet stretch of sterile, dim corridor, and he knew he was no longer invisible. The passing hurricane left Dean swaying on his heels as the realization fell over him that the solitary nurse seated at the station glanced up, took a double take, and saw him there. Too late. He couldn't retreat and his companions left him in the dust. If they weren't trying to help Castiel, his temper would have flashed.

"Um, hi," Dean said, tripping over his words as he came into the shadowy nurse's station.

Questions stilled the nurse's eyes and she spun the chair to propel herself onto her feet. "Mr. Winchester, visiting hours are over until morning."

"You know who I am?"

"Everyone does," she replied. "I don't suppose you're gonna wait 'til proper visiting hours to see him, are you?"

He wondered if she should stall the nurse. Quick flits of his eyes searched the room but he couldn't see anything aside from Castiel's still body lying in the bed. "Well, I'd really like to see him if you don't mind." Turning on a little charm mixed with Sam's puppy dog eyes couldn't hurt. "I won't stay long. I just don't know what to do. My baby's gone. Cops don't know anything. Cas is all I've got, y'know?"

Consideration and empathy creased the delicate skin between her eyebrows. "Don't make any noise or bother the other patients."

"Scout's honor." Dean held up his best boy scout fingers.

"Go on then." She nodded.

"Thanks."

Before she had a second to change her mind, Dean hurried into the sanctuary of Castiel's intensive care room. He expected to see the goddesses there too but only found his husband still and quiet, save for the steady rhythm of the machine breathing for him. Unruly dark hair curled over his ears. Stubble grew in thicker around his mouth. It had only been about twenty-four hours but Castiel was always the sort of mortal man to keep his five o'clock shadow groomed to perfection. Seeing bits of gray shine under hospital lights made him appear entirely too human and fragile for Dean's comfort.

"I am here." Bastet's breathy voice purred in his ear.

It startled Dean hearing what he couldn't see. "Where?" he whispered discreetly.

Long, clawed fingers slipped through his hand and laced between his own fingers, sending electric tingles along the length of his arm to his shoulder and beyond. Black materialized beside him, and then cerulean blue leaned over Castiel's body. His human vision fed through an immortal tunnel until he could see Brigid and Bastet again so clearly yet he knew no one else perceived their presence. Squeezing Bastet's hand, his link to the unseen world, he stepped around the hospital bed until he loomed over Castiel opposite the Celtic goddess.

"He mustn't be healed entirely at first."

Dean got the distinct impression Brigid talked over his head to Bastet as if his presence didn't matter. To a goddess that ancient, maybe one mortal life like his didn't cause a stir for her. He did save the world with his brother during the apocalypse. And he was universally respected as the Queen of Heaven's Righteous Man. He chafed at the way she passed over him. Maybe she should show him some respect too.

"Why not? Fix him if you can," he pressed, not willing to be ignored.

The ancient Irish sky shined through her blue eyes. Brigid shook her head. "Obvious displays of power are too much for humans to understand when they witness such things."

"I can take it. So can he," Dean argued.

"Not the two of you," corrected Brigid with a flourish of her arm toward the door. "Them. The human healers. The newsmakers. The witnesses. If your Castiel rises too suddenly, it will go badly for both of you among suspicious humans who question exactly what's happened."

Slowly and consumed with reluctance, Dean began to understand her point.

"And," she continued in a more foreboding tone, "the demons will certainly know you have celestial aid at your side if Castiel's recovery is too astonishing too fast."

"At this juncture, you need the demons to believe you're alone and unguarded," Bastet agreed with a sober nod.

Bile rose in Dean's throat, or so he thought until it rose higher into tears stinging his eyes for the thousandth time in those twenty-four hours of sleepless hell. "So, what, you're just gonna let him lie here and maybe die?"

Brigid shook her head and peered down at Castiel's battered face again. "No," she murmured simply. A slender ivory hand draped over his swollen eye where the flesh cracked into a gash of dried blood. "I'm going to be subtle day by day and ensure his survival. Healing is an art, you see. When an artist paints, they don't blunder through it in just a few hours. It takes time to build the masterpiece." Her hand lifted and revealed new flesh mending over the wound and drawing out the swelling.

Watching the black eye heal forced a deep sigh of relief through Dean and his shoulders sagged with weariness. An impulse had him bending over and pressing his lips to Castiel's temple.

"He feels you," Bastet said. "He knows you're here."

Dean straightened but kept his free hand linked in Castiel's fingers. He watched Brigid's outstretched hands hover--one over his head and one over his chest--with her eyes closed in deep concentration. A low hum filled the room without a sense of a fixed source and Dean swore he smelled a fire. Not the angry sort of inferno that consumed people and buildings but the warm, woodsy aroma that took him back to camping as a kid. It took him back to one of the only times he ever felt comfortable and normal after his mother died. Brigid was far more insightful and powerful than he first reasoned. Not only did she heal Castiel's body piece by piece from within but she communicated protection to them both without uttering a word. If he had her pegged wrong, that was the moment he really thought about it.

"His soul no longer fights," whispered Bastet as if translating a foreign language for him. "Brigid has calmed him and explained everything that's happening. He's in the antechamber."

"The antechamber?"

"Yes. All human souls neither here nor there wait in the antechamber until it's decided whether they return to the body or go on to the afterlife coinciding with their faith."

"He's comfortable in the antechamber. There is no pain," added Brigid in a slow drawl as if in a trance. "I've told him that I will return for him when his body is ready to be occupied again. The child has him incredibly worried, of course, and he saw who took her. He's attempted to escape the antechamber a number of times to find the child but hasn't succeeded. Wait." Silence pricked the back of Dean's neck. It felt a little too much like talking to the dead through a medium. "Geraldine. Cecily. These are the demons who took your child. Castiel encountered them years before and so they had his scent, so to speak. Abaddon. Abaddon ordered it. Summon Crowley."

Brigid's eyes popped open and she dropped her hands. She exchanged concerned glances with Bastet, who struggled to comprehend why Castiel would say such a thing. To call upon any demon sounded ludicrous to beings of light and guidance, Dean knew.

"I know where he's going with this." Dean gave a sharp nod. "He's telling me to play Crowley against Abaddon to find our kid and let them duke it out over the crown."

*****

Coming home to the bunker with a black cat tucked under one arm and a cloaked woman in tow might have seemed odd to anyone in the world except the Winchesters. The goddess Bastet had reverted back to her feline form upon leaving the hospital having stated just how taxing it was on her mental faculties to take on the humanoid form.

"Just, uh, make yourself at home," Dean muttered to Brigid as she slipped the hood back from her red hair. "I gotta find my brother."

"Below," she said softly, lowering into a leather chair.

Dean realized she spoke of the bunker basement and he glanced toward the doorway with a nod. "Yeah, thanks."

Bastet's claws dug into the meat above his waistline and he took that to mean she wouldn't be put down on the floor. So he gathered the cat up to his chest and made his way down to the basement, soon hearing the unmistakable sounds of inhuman screeching, marked by the powerfully dark voice of his brother conducting some kind of spell.

He followed the sounds to the dungeon. The storage shelf doorway remained open and Dean caught the long, imposing shape of his brother hunched over ... who was that tied to the chair ... Amanda Howell? Protectiveness surged through Dean at the moment he heard a sharpened male voice emanating from her throat. Her eyes shined black under the fluorescent lights and she stared blankly ahead as if she couldn't see a single person in the room. Krissy stepped forward then, a book opened across her arms, and she spoke aloud a spell Dean had never heard before with such monotone precision that her skill as a hunter momentarily impressed him if he wasn't so concerned about what they were doing to Amanda.

"Guard the infant human at the kingdom gates. Await Abaddon's orders. No one is to harm the Winchesters until the artifacts have been recovered."

The words flowed from Amanda's mouth but the voice wasn't hers and she seemed to be reciting text. Dean crept closer, letting Sam and Krissy see him. Only a moment's questioning glance at the black cat clutched to his chest distracted her from controlling the situation. She and Sam listened as Amanda recited more in a language no one understood. Then, as if nothing happened, her head slumped forward with her chin resting on her chin for half a minute until she roused again, completely herself once more.

Blinking, she coughed. "Did it ... did it work?"

"Yeah. We got something out of it." Sam sounded as gentle as he could while he untied the wrists bound behind her back. "Are you okay?"

"I taste sulfur. It's--" Abruptly, Amanda flung forward the second Sam let her go and the contents of her stomach spewed out from her mouth. She coughed again and the involuntary tears of sickness spell down her cheeks. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that. The sulfur ... it's awful. I don't feel well."

Sam rubbed her back. "It's okay. A little puke isn't that big of a deal."

"You can stay here tonight. Let us keep an eye on you until morning, okay?" Krissy put the book down in favor of guiding Amanda to her feet with the same care one friend gave to another. "We can't thank you enough for doing this. You're going to help us find the baby."

"What the hell's going on here?" Dean demanded.

Sam hesitated just a moment as Amanda was ushered out of the room. "We got a spell that let us read demon orders. The spell requires a person recently possessed since apparently possession leaves behind traces of the demon inside the person. It's like the coach leaving behind the playbook without knowing it for the other team to find."

"And?"

"Well, they've got Lia at the kingdom gates. Whatever that means. You're right. They're holding her hostage until they get the artifacts from us."

Swearing under his breath, Dean couldn't make sense of the kingdom gates, nor could he make sense of how the demons didn't already know that he gave the artifacts to the handmaidens of Mother Mary. The respite of knowing Castiel was safe in the hospital and most decidedly not going to die didn't last very long knowing the demons really did have Lia. Bastet smacked him around the back with her curling, sinuous tail, to which Dean unconsciously scratched her around the head. Sam arched an eyebrow and gave her a little wave.

"Good to see you again, Bastet," he said and then looked to Dean. "I take it you got help for Cas."

Dean nodded. "I've got another goddess stashed upstairs. They worked on him a little bit but they wouldn't heal him completely in case the demons are watching. They don't want the demons to know we have help from gods and goddesses yet."

"Yeah, good thinking. He gonna be okay?"

"They said he would. I guess it's just going to take time." He sighed and let Bastet down on the floor. "Apparently he's in a place called the antechamber and not even in his body at all. He knows what's going on. They said he's tried to escape a few times but he can't get out. It's like a place where souls go while whoever's in charge decides whether they live or die. If they live, they go back to their bodies. If they die, they go on to heaven. Or hell. Whatever. He's not gonna die if Brigid and Bastet have anything to say about it but he's not well enough yet to come back to us."

Empathetic lines creased Sam's face as he nodded and leaned forward to pat Dean on the shoulder. "It's going to be okay. As soon as we find out where the kingdom gates are, we can go get the baby." He studied Dean, looking even more worried. "You haven't slept."

"No. Not since they took Lia." The weariness overcame him as he rubbed his eyes. "I can't. Something might happen. Cas could ... Lia might...."

"Dean, you can't do all this yourself. You've got family. We're all working every angle of this thing. You need to go to bed. Just for a couple of hours. If something does happen and you can't be there to help us because your body collapsed from exhaustion, that's going to weigh on you even more. Go on and sleep for a while. Where have you got my wife? I'm going to go get her."

"The Hyatt. The one across the city from the hospital. Cops have us stashed in the hotel in case the kidnappers or paparazzi come after us. They're supposed to come and get us in the morning but I guess it doesn't matter if we're not there. We gotta find my kid."

"And we will," Sam promised with that sincerity so intrinsic to his character. "Go to bed. I'll go grab Mina and we'll start again in a couple of hours."

Reluctantly, Dean agreed. He felt like he was going to fall over on his feet and the way that black goddess cat traipsed ahead suggested she agreed that he needed sleep. Along the way through the bunker to the residential floor, they passed Krissy conversing somewhat in awe with Brigid, who clearly warmed up to females much faster than males. Krissy absently informed them of installing Amanda into bed in the room next to Sam's sleeping children.

Dean let Bastet join him in the silence of the room he'd used years before during the war for the Virgin Mary's throne. He sat on the edge of his bed for a long time staring blankly at the wall. It occurred to him that he hadn't wanted to sleep because, as long as he kept moving, he wouldn't have to feel the emptiness of leaving his husband in the hospital and not knowing who had his child. That kind of emptiness left him so hollowed out that he'd never experienced such a dark sensation in his life. For the briefest moment, he thought it would have been so much easier not to fall in love and dare to have a family. Hunters never got what they wanted, after all. Being audacious enough to try and have a spouse, baby, and a life without giving up the hunter life left him vulnerable and paying for it now. Was it audacity or was it selfishness? Did his selfishness put his husband and child in danger?

Silken black fur rubbed his elbow, drawing him back to the moment. Bastet's warm feline body purring against his side made the message quite clear. Lie down and rest. There are eyes watching over Castiel where he lies in the hospital and eyes watching over your family. Dean stroked her fur as her head curled around his abdomen.

"You slept here once. Remember? Okay. Just don't turn back into a lady on me or it'll get a little weird," said Dean, thinking back to the night Bastet as a cat stood guard while he slept in that same bed.

He didn't bother to get undressed. It wasn't like he would get a full eight hours anyway. No Winchester ever did. Instead, he dragged the blanket over his legs and left an opening for the cat in case he wanted a warm place to snuggle for a little while. Maybe he could convince himself that nothing bad was happening to his family long enough to sleep. He stuffed a hand behind his head, lying back on the pillows, and closed his eyes. Eventually sleepover took him. His body just couldn't take any more.

It was a dreamless, black, empty sleep and Dean was thankful for it. He didn't know how long he lasted under the cover of unconsciousness but coming around to the reality of things happened abruptly. Hissing brought him back. He bolted upright in bed, finding Bastet down by his feet with her cat spine arched in a violent curve.

The angelic figure stood at the foot of his bed staring down at the cat and murmuring in an ancient language. Bastet stood down, though reluctantly. Dean hadn't seen her in so long that he didn't recognize her at first, especially with the indescribable glow of an archangel's light enveloping her presence. She noticed him quite awake then, and tilted her head to an affectionate angle with a welcoming smile.

"Dean, I'm so glad to see you again," Magdalena said. "I just wish it was under better circumstances. Are you doing all right?"

He scrambled off the bed to his feet just as Bastet hopped to the floor. She kept her honor and never took on a female form in Dean's bed. The second her paws hit the floor though, muscles and bones stretched into human-like feminine shapes.

"Magdalena? Is that you?" Of course it was. Dean nearly slapped himself for asking such a cliche question like every movie he ever watched. "You look so ... so different. Being an archangel agrees with you."

"Yes, it does. I missed being home, although I still sometimes miss my flower shop too." She fell silent for a moment. "The queen knows what's happened. Very few of us have been made aware of it, however, because of ... diplomatic concerns."

His eyes narrowed skeptically. "Yeah, I know all about those new diplomacy issues. Who cares about my family as long as treaties are upheld, right?"

"Dean, you've been summoned to an audience with our Queen Mary. I am to escort you to Heaven right now."

The room came to a standstill with that message. Dean glanced at Bastet with questioning eyes, sensing that a decision to trust her alone years before meant he wouldn't move without her say so. His faith in his Mother Mary was absolute, however, and he'd worked hard to build that faith. Trust in his longtime guardian battled faith in his chosen goddess.

"Every time I go to Heaven, I have to die to get there," he ventured carefully.

The archangel nodded. "I'm afraid this time is no different."

"Then I want Bastet to come with me to make sure I get back to my body okay. That's my condition." He squared his shoulders as if he expected an argument on the demand.

"As you wish," replied Magdalena in a melodic tone.

Before Dean could say anything else, the archangel glided closer with an outstretched hand. Her bright white dress nearly blinded him. She murmured a string of ancient phrases as Bastet drew closer to his side and took his arm.

"Breathe easy, Dean," said Magdalena. "Your heart is stopping now."

Blackness seeped in around the edges of his vision.


	12. Chapter 12

No one ever described what it was like to die, to be drawn into another realm. Dean had died a number of times in his existence but he never got used to the vacuum sensation brought from being ripped out of his flesh. And then came the weightlessness, the violent jolt from being torn apart to a sudden void.

Dean died again to answer his goddess' call. If she didn't help him find his child, he'd storm Hell on his own. He made that vow in the silent nothingness.

Ripped upward again, he sensed his soul tugged along by a pair of presences flanking him. He focused his perception and knew the quicker he got his bearings, the quicker he could pull together a plan to rescue Lia from her demonic captors. Sensing Magdalena on his right--a streak of shimmering ivory--and Bastet on his left--a streak of shining black--he felt stronger about his prospects. The Queen of Heaven called to him, after all, not the other way around.

A flash of white blinded Dean, stunning him off course momentarily, but Magdalena and Bastet never let go of him. The trio got sucked, it seemed, through a marble floor like gas through cracks and then they materialized into solid forms copying the bodies they knew on Earth. Dean touched his own abdomen and sensed the illusion created from the consciousnesses of all ghosts clinging to their physical forms. He wasn't his body but he projected his appearance for all to see, just as Magdalena and Bastet did.

"Let's make this quick," he grumbled.

Magdalena shook her head as she picked at his clothes, her touch changing their colors to a white shirt overlayed with an open blue button-down shirt and black dress pants. "You must be announced first. Court etiquette demands it."

He scowled down at himself. "I look like a Gap ad."

"The court's colors are blue and white to honor the Queen's earthly life as the virgin mother of the Messiah," she said patiently.

It was at that moment that Dean finally took in his surroundings. Angels and a few human souls mingled together, all wearing smooth linen attire in blues and whites, congregated in ... where was he ... a basilica vestibule. Yes, there were enormous arched doorways framed in gray and white marble leading to a basilica sanctuary so large and opulent that he couldn't see where it ended. Bodies crowded the vestibule, a room with a lower, simpler ceiling where they'd been herded awaiting announcement.

There just inside the sanctuary doorway, he spotted a pair of angelic guards staring blankly ahead much like the soldiers in black furry hats at Buckingham Palace, except the angels wore crisp white attire. Men wore suits of deep blue--and some women chose those suits as well. Women wore white linen gowns flowing and hugging their figures with blue silk draped here and there for decoration. He noticed some men wearing those gowns too, yet it felt perfectly normal. Gender meant nothing and they dressed as they pleased in Mary's Heaven. There were no sideways glances or judgmental whispers. Lovers of every variety sampled fruits, cakes, and sumptuous meats while chatting and laughing together--some even seemed grouped into amorous relationships in threes or fours. Yet still, all were bonded by ties of common goals, friendship, and a desire to serve the goddess. The warmth of it all, the peace, and the sense of freedom to be himself edged in on his focus, drawing him into their fold inch by inch.

How easy it would be to simply stay there.

Three cracks of a golden staff on the marble floor silenced the merriment. An angel proclaimed: "Her Celestial Majesty calls upon His Highness, the Righteous Man of Earth to attend an audience at her throne!"

"Go on. I'll be close behind," whispered Bastet.

Dean's brow furrowed. "What he frick? What's with the His Highness crap?" he hissed under his breath, palms going damp with uncertainty.

"My dear boy, you married into the celestial royal family. Castiel is one of the Queen's high heirs, hand chosen with others from the noble seraphim. That makes your husband royal by her creation and you royal by marriage. Now go." Magdalena's palm between his shoulderblades thrust him forward.

Being pushed tossed Dean through the marble arched entranceway into the sanctuary, which resembled more of a palance's great hall than a basilica without pews. The great height of the Gothic arches drew his eyes upward immediately, even as his feet propelled him forward. All eyes turned to him as he made his way up a central aisle but none stared with condescension or hate. Those who didn't appear curious looked him over with sad sympathy, suggesting that some knew of his kidnapped child while others remained ignorant of it. He glanced behind him and found both Bastet and Magdalena following a few paces to the rear. The Egyptian goddess allowed more of her feline form to bleed through the human facade as her slim black tail curled with an aristocratic flair behind her.

The walk to the throne seemed never ending and Dean hated being stared at, only to be more uncomfortable when he realized a few angels curtsied or bowed as he passed. It was ridiculous. Winchesters were working class and having that kind of haughty pretense around him made him feel like a joke. Even so, the Queen of Heaven was technically his mother-in-law and he had placed his faith in her. He lowered his eyes so he wouldn't have to feel so damn aware of her court studying him and his pace quickened. Was the great hall a mile long? Damn.

"You have nothing to fear, Dean."

The Queen's voice reverberating from the rounded end of the great hall and soothed him, drawing his gaze up to a throne flanked by the three handmaidens in glittering gold robes. Other angels stood dutifully off to the sides and resembled advisors. There Mary's tiny frame sat on a plush throne of white tucked upholstery and richly carved cherrywood, he guessed. Those were things Castiel would have noticed. He yammered on endlessly about furniture and architecture, much to Dean's annoyance, but he regretted it now. He'd listen to Castiel babble about nineteenth century Quaker furniture for the rest of his life if it meant having his husband back. The regret, the sorrow, and the helplessness swept through him again, dropping his eyes to the marble steps leading to the throne. Radiant light bathed the Queen's altar in warmth and beauty. It shined through stained glass windows. It reflected beautiful colors off the white robes clothing her court. Dean should have enjoyed the beauty. Castiel would have, for sure.

Mary spoke again. "You're among extended family. We shall give you all the comfort we can in this difficult time."

"Yeah," Dean said hoarsely, nodding. "Um... hi."

Dark rosy lips quirked into a faint smile. "Hi."

Silence settled in and Dean felt hundreds of eyes boring into the back of his head eager for details of his plight. He wondered if he should just jump in straightaway.

Sensing his discomfort, it seemed, the tiny Queen rose from her oversized throne. It wasn't until she stood free of the enormity of her position that Dean realized she dressed herself in the same plain white gown and blue draped around her shoulders that she wore while she was still under God's control. Amid the finery, the glittering brightness, the abundance and beauty surrounding her court, Mary remained true to her purpose and true to her existence as mother to all. She wore no crown but instead left her blue linen draped over the crown of her head, which made her long dark hair stand out in natural radiance.

Dean had to bend to her small height when she took his hands and kissed both of his cheeks. An affront to his manhood, the overflow of maternal comfort caused tears to prick his eyes. He remembered, then. He remembered why he fought for Mother Mary's throne away from God's control and why he would fight for it again if she asked.

"My ladies tell me you risked a great deal to return my family's belongings from the Knights Templar's possession. You protected irreplaceable things from Hell's clutches and all in my court are forever grateful for your efforts."

Murmuring in the great hall was punctuated by praise for Dean's bravery and it grew into applause. He found himself unable to release Mother Mary's hands as he peered over his shoulder at the novelty of angels actually cheering a Winchester. Sam should have been there to see the oddity. He couldn't take comfort in their praise so long as his child was gone and his husband teetered between life and death.

"I need your help," he said, turning back to the Queen. "Demons nabbed my baby girl and Cas is--"

"--I know." Her head bowed and she studied his hands swallowing her small fingers whole.

"You gotta get Cas outta the antechamber."

Almond dark eyes shot up to his, narrowed and angered. "The antechamber? But he's dead."

Magdalena cleared her throat behind Dean. "No, madam. His body lies in a hospital while his soul is sequestered in the antechamber awaiting a continuance or a death."

Dean felt hot rage surge through Mother Mary's hands. It singed his skin and he let go of her fingers before her internalized emotion burned him. The Queen glared at her advisors congregated at a respectful distance. She spat at them in rapid Enochian, which Dean couldn't fully understand, but the gist of it amounted to the action of locking up Castiel's soul was done without her knowledge. At the end of her machine gun fire Enochian admonishments, her advisors' shoulders drooped, though Dean had to admire their ability to take it. Admiration faded as he realized Castiel's soul had been sent to the antechamber, preventing his bodily recovery, and it smelled of Hell having an inside man to him.

Hard, clear English boomed through the great hall from such a small body. "Release my son immediately! Bring him to me!"

Advisors scurried quick like cockroaches when a light flicked on in a blackened room.

Calm once more as if nothing happened, Mother Mary took Dean by the hand and mounted the marble steps to her throne. "Come," she beckoned. "Talk with me while we wait. I must know everything since it seems I'm not as informed as I expect." Her voice rose. "A stool for His Highness beside my throne!" She waved her free hand, offering the court a deceptively cheerful smile. "Music! Eat, eat! All is well."

Low murmuring grew into steady conversation as the lutes and strings began filling the great hall once more. Dean couldn't help feeling relief as attention diverted from his presence there. One of the handmaidens, Batina, gave him a familiar if not discreet smile as she placed a stool covered in pale gold velvet beside the throne. She nodded and gestured to the empty space with an upturned hand. A crystal goblet of deep garnet colored wine was thrust into his hand and he began to realize that he was probably in a bit of shock. Cold hands, yes, his hands were cold and his fingers went numb--an interesting trick considering he didn't occupy his body. But just like that, Castiel was getting sprung from the antechamber and would arrive at any moment. He sat in Heaven--dead again--and deciding there was no limit to the measures he'd take to save his child.

The Queen in her plain clothes and unadorned hair sat in her mighty throne, placed higher than his stool. Even though Mother Mary was focused on the business of being a goddess rather than enjoying the spoils of her war, she never let any of them forget just who was in charge there. Dean admired her understated power. He drew strength from it.

"Are you comfortable?" she asked.

"Sure," Dean said.

"Drink your wine. It'll warm those hands, my dear."

Dean flexed his fist around the goblet's crystal stem and obeyed, taking a long drink. It tasted sweeter than the wines Castiel favored at home.

"Better?"

"Yeah," he replied and realized he meant it.

He noticed Magdalena join her fellow archangels, small in number, huddled in their own golden light near a stained glass window that stretched to the floor. Bastet moved behind him, slightly off to one side, at the ready to guard him or attend to his needs the way Mother Mary's handmaidens surrounded her throne. It seemed the conversation was meant for relative privacy.

"Good. Now tell me what's happening on Earth, dear boy."

Slowly, Dean began unburdening himself as he unraveled the tale for the Queen. She listened and drank in every detail as he described Krissy stealing the holy family's artifacts from the Knights Templar. They agreed those artifacts were the reason Abaddon ordered her demons to hold baby Lia hostage, just as they agreed Castiel's brush with death wasn't part of their plan. As he described what Amanda Howell's demonic traces spelled out about Lia being held at the kingdom gates, Mother Mary nodded. She understood.

"The Gates of Hell. Just as you see a kingdom here, so too is Hell made up of a kingdom, though it's barbaric by our standards. A demon thrives in darkness, you know." She considered the situation. "If they've taken your child to the gates, then she is no longer of your realm. A human life will not endure in their realm, which makes the situation far more urgent than I thought. They're expecting you to give in to their demands. Hell still believes, I gather, that you hold no loyalty to Heaven."

"My loyalty is to you and my family. Nothing more," Dean said resolutely.

"They don't know that," she replied.

"I don't have the artifacts to trade anymore. If they figure out I don't have anything to bargain, they're gonna kill my girl. I need your help." Dean reiterated his point again, needing help, and swallowed more wine as he peered at the Queen's profile.

Before she had a moment to gather her thoughts and decide on a course, commotion ceased the festivities at the other end of the great hall just as Dean's arrival had done. He shot to his feet, knocking the stool backwards, and his height matched with the vaulted staging of the throne loomed over the heads of the courtiers. They parted, dividing the crowds, and a diamond formation of midnight blue suits cut through the angels. A lone figure at the center of the suited guards caught Dean's eye. He squinted over the lengthy distance. Messy dark hair and glimpses of sturdy, strong shoulders filtered between the guards.

"Cas!" His voice ripped through his throat and bounced off the stone walls and stained glass windows. "Cas!"

"Dean!" He was hoarse and weary but it was him.

Dean's legs threw him down the stairs despite not having permission to leave the Queen's presence. She said nothing, though he doubted it would have mattered, and he bolted around angels, shoving his way between them, and nearly pushing them out of his way. A gun to his head wouldn't have stopped him. The overpowering relief and desire to crush Castiel in his arms again took him by surprise, reminding him all to suddenly just how much he needed that creature.

The angels backed away, giving Dean room as he flew toward Castiel, who burst through the guards surrounding him. His spirit looked weakened, milky and translucent around the edges, but Dean counted himself solid enough for both of them. Such a display probably never happened for most of the angelic courtiers, witnessing the reunion of two souls so wholly bonded by companionship, love, and fatherhood that golden sparks erupted between them like two pieces of striking flint. Arms wrapped tightly around shoulders and waists. Dean choked and swallowed his emotion back but feeling Castiel's fingers ferociously clutching his body brought it out of him. A hand raked down the back of Castiel's head as he kissed his husband, their first desperate, crushing kiss after so much uncertainty that he would even survive the demonic attack.

"Are you okay?" demanded Dean, his voice cracking and raspy with emotion. His hands framed Castiel's face and quickly patted down his arms and chest.

"I'm fine. I've been fighting and trying to escape," he said darkly, eyes darting around the great hall suspiciously. "The guards came and took me. I didn't know where they were taking me but I see now.... Dean...." Blue eyes finally settled on Dean as Castiel's fingertips traced his lips. "Oh Dean, you're here ... in Heaven ... when did you--"

"--I ain't dead, babe. Not permanent anyway," Dean swore.

Castiel nodded. Dean saw his mind skipping from question to question in his mind but only one made it past his throat. "Where's Lia? Tell me you've found her."

Darkly, filled with shame, Dean let go of him and shook his head.

"Oh!" choked Castiel, reeling on his feet. Just as his knees started to wobble, Dean's arms lashed out and grabbed him. "She was sick! I took her to the pedia-ped-oh Lia!"

The eruptions of grief from one of their own propelled the other angels into action. A chair was brought and hands lowered Castiel carefully into the seat. He wasn't aware of anything except his guilt and Dean tethered to his hand. Angels murmured comforting things in Enochian as it sank in for Castiel that his baby girl with Dean remained in the hands of demons. Part of Castiel had always struggled to cope with the more intense emotions but having his child kidnapped, and facing no news about it, sent him into sobs. He mumbled incoherently about Lia needing her cough medicine and how every passing minute in Hell did more and more damage to her. Dean held onto him, wholly at a loss for words, but he knew it was better to wait for the renewed shock to subside before they formulated a plan.

"Don't worry, Cas. We're gonna get her back now that you're outta the damn antechamber. I'm gonna kill whoever locked you away in there," Dean promised through gritting teeth.

"Make way for Her Celestial Majesty," a voice cried somewhere in the crowd.

As the crowd separated, Dean felt her maternal glow drawing near before he saw her. She threaded her way along the great hall with her three handmaidens in gold gowns trailing every step. One brought wine in another crystal goblet. Mother Mary swept in along Castiel's side, never usurping Dean's position as his spouse, but asserting her position as his mother. She took his other hand and kissed it. Her arm slid around his shoulders and her cheek came to rest on top of his sloppy dark hair.

"Shh, my son. You must be healed. Your soul is tattered around the edges. Be still now."

Mother Mary met eyes with Dean, her chin dipping in a low nod of communication. It was going to hurt, he guessed. Castiel sat still, his anguish having dried up into numb resolve on the cusp of grim determination to burst into Hell guns blazing. Without saying a word, Dean's grip tightened on his arm and the handmaidens did their part to hold Castiel in the chair as well, though he didn't fight. His inner light flickered as if it wanted to go out but he eyed his mother trustingly as she swooped around the front of him.

The Queen bent over Castiel with her blue veil shrouding her body to the knees and the hem of her white gown brushing the floor. She placed her hands wide open over his chest. A blue-white glow emanated through her arms, into her fingers, and pierced Castiel's core until he growled in pain. His muscles clenched in Dean's hands as the electrical current reinvigorated his soul's strength.

Defeat gave way to the impulse of a warrior ready to fight. Healing his soul's damage from being trapped in the antechamber dried his tears and redirected his grief. The child wasn't dead. Mother Mary help all of Hell if those demons killed the only child born to Castiel and Dean Winchester. Feeling the wicked determination bring his husband back to life brought, in turn, life back into himself and he began to think ahead to the next steps rather than worrying over the past. Through his pain, Castiel's hand turned on the arm of the chair and grabbed Dean's hand so tightly their skin blanched. As one strengthened, so too did the other. They were two separate individuals, of course, but they were stronger together than apart.

When Mother Mary let go and righted her elegant posture, her handmaidens released Castiel as well. He looked over his spirit form, no longer empty and bleeding away at the edges, and his blue eyes darkened toward Dean with a nod.

"Thank you, Mother," he told the Queen reverently.

Appreciative murmurs rippled through the court. She took Dean and Castiel by their elbows and led them back to her throne where a second stool identical to the one Dean used was placed on the opposite side of her magnificent seat. The three of them sat, the Queen much more at home than them. Dean wasn't interested in playing court games anymore even as he watched merriment resume through the great hall spread below.

"My dear boys," she began without looking at either of them, "I wonder if you've been made aware of the treaties between various celestial kingdoms in the wake of my victory against God."

"I know about it. Bastet explained it all to me," Dean said.

"Then you must know what sort of position in which I find myself at this moment. The stipulations of our treaties include leaving Hell alone as long as no direct attacks are made upon us. If I am to send my armies to the Gates, I'll be violating a number of other treaties with countless other celestial kingdoms, such as your dear Bastet here, though her territory is rather small."

Cat eyes flickered down at the Queen from where Bastet stood as Dean's advisor. She said nothing, though Dean could tell the comment about her small kingdom stung.

Dean sighed more impatiently than he intended. "Okay but--"

"--On the other hand," interrupted Mother Mary, "the kidnapped child is, in fact, a Princess of Heaven since her father is a Prince of Heaven. This certainly complicates matters for me."

The doubt in her tone unnerved Dean, as did observing the casual way she drummed her fingers on the carved arm of the throne. He looked past the Queen to Castiel sitting on her other side, who subtly shook his head as if he predicted the rising temper. Though Dean loved Mother Mary, the life of his child was no casual matter. He shifted on his stool and lightly tapped the bottom of his wine goblet, waiting for the Queen to arrive at some conclusion. His patience drained away the longer her silence deflected the question.

"Look, I don't know much about diplomacy on Earth let alone the rest of the universe," he said before he realized it. "I do know if you refuse to help Cas and me get our girl back, we're gonna do it ourselves. Coming to you for help first has to show my faith, right? I'd rather do this with you, Mother, but I'm not afraid to do it without you. That's my kid they've got down there. That's Cas' kid. Your grandchild, really. Treaties or not--" his temper brought him to his feet, peering down at the little goddess perched on her celestial throne, "--where I come from, family comes first. I fought for this big gaudy throne you're sitting on right now, if I'm gonna be honest, and if you called on me to fight again, I would. That's what family does. When the chips are down, we go all in for each other. Now are you really gonna let those hell-dicks steal my kid--your grandkid--without doing anything about it?"

Mother Mary's face tipped upward, looking Dean over with cool dark eyes. She remained motionless and resembled a Middle Eastern version of the statues adorning old cathedrals worldwide. A creature like her never needed a crown to assert her dominance. All eyes turned to the small, graceful head adorned with a blue linen mantle spilling from the crown of her head.

"You don't comprehend what you're saying," the Queen replied in an even tone. "When one celestial kingdom goes into rebellion, the others must meet and agree upon a collective course of action. I cannot act without consulting the other gods and goddesses who signed our treaties. The scope is so much larger than the Princess Lia even if she is my granddaughter. These treaties are in place to keep the peace and protect the universe from enduring the destruction of another celestial war. I shall not have more blood on my hands than I already do."

"Hell's in open rebellion!" shouted Dean, bending over the Queen. "They're taking advantage of this peace system you've built to get their hands on controlling Earth! Taking my kid is supposed to give them a bargaining chip against you to take the holy family's artifacts and swallow up all the power in my home! I'll be damned if I have to watch Hell puke up another Hitler into humanity!"

A collective gasp swept through the great hall. Angels murmured questions and gossip among themselves as they watched discontent split their celestial royal family.

"Dean," cautioned Castiel.

It didn't matter what angels or people thought of him. The fevered desire to have his child back home in his arms had him spiraling out of control. "Mother," he began again, lowering his voice to a deadly tone, "are you with us or against us?"

"The other gods--"

"--Fuck the other gods and goddesses! This is family!"

Bastet, still standing behind Dean's empty stool, flickered a warning through her glittering gold feline eyes meant only for him. The tail she bore twitched in black, slender elegance past the hem of her white linen gown.

Stiff, cold silence wedged between Dean and his mother-in-law. He took it for indifference or even rage at first until, when Castiel slowly left his stool to stand beside Dean, the delicate brown skin around her right eye twitched. It wasn't cold indifference toward them or their child but the sense of duty to the universal treaty tearing her in two different directions. She was afraid of making the wrong decision and sparking another costly war in less than ten years. A good queen kept her composure and never betrayed her personal inclinations in front of the court.

"Batina," beckoned Mother Mary without breaking Dean's gaze.

One of the three identical handmaidens approached over Mother Mary's shoulder. The warm light filling the great hall made her golden gown sparkle even more than on Earth as she curtsied low and awaited instruction.

"Find Gadreel."

Another collective gasp, though quieter that time, rippled through the great hall. Enthralled angels nearly leaned forward rather invasively to catch every morsel of the unfolding drama.

The Queen's voice rose as if making a proclamation. "Gadreel has long since proven himself a worthy soldier in my army after I released him from his sentence. Therefore, I call upon my most trusted servant, Gadreel, to take an envoy to the Gates of Hell where he shall seek terms for the release of the most high celestial Princess Lia Winchester, now the hostage of Queen Abaddon. He shall return in three days' time, whereupon my counsel will have assembled to determine further action."

Grateful at least for the envoy, thinking maybe a bloody attack would kill Lia in the crossfire, Dean let out an exhale. He dropped to his knee before the Queen of Heaven's throne, following Castiel's lead as he dropped to his knee too.

"I'm going with Gadreel," said Castiel.

"So am I," Dean agreed.

Mother Mary lifted a hand. "No. You're both human and lacking proper strength to defend yourselves. You'll be a liability to both Gadreel and me."

Exchanging glances, Dean and Castiel communicated without words. "We should be there," Dean pressed. "This is our kid."

"She may be your child but for the purposes of my involvement in accordance with the treaty, she is the most high celestial Princess Lia. I am, by that truth, in full possession of the decisions here. My decision is Gadreel will serve as your representative in the negotiation envoy. You will go home and cooperate with the human authorities to keep them out of our way and Castiel will be restored to his body this day."

Protests clogged in Dean's throat so ferociously that he couldn't push one of them out at first.

Mother Mary leaned forward, resting her arm over her lap. "I shall only allow your participation in Lia's rescue under one condition and that must only be after my counsel has formed in three days."

"Which is?" Dean asked.

"You must both take the graces I gave you five years ago," Mother Mary decreed. "You must become angels."


	13. Chapter 13

It wasn't the pain of a twisted leg that brought Dean back to reality. It wasn't even the distant echo of Bastet's voice ordering him to rise. Buzzing in his pocket against his hipbone irritated the silent blackness of unconscious existence. He groaned and sluggishly swatted a hand at his pocket.

"Dean! You must get up!" Bastet hissed near his face.

The reluctance of leaving warm sleep swept back in moments as he came to with a flood of memories reminding him of where he'd been and what he needed to do. Dizzy, he sat up and realized he dropped in the alley behind the hospital in Kansas City where Castiel had been admitted. The phone resumed buzzing against his thigh, having slid deeper into his pocket as he sat upright. As he groped for his phone, however, Bastet dragged him by the sleeve into a back door and an empty stairwell.

"Couldn't aim for a softer landing spot?" he groused. "I think my leg's sprained. Fuck."

A deeper layer of foreign hung around Bastet's words as she hissed. "You try directing two souls through the chasm of interdimensional space. I aimed for the hospital. Landing in the lane behind it was skillfully done if you ask me. Be still." The feline goddess bent and skimmed a healing hand down the whole of his leg.

While she healed him, Dean answered the incessantly buzzing phone. "Yeah?"

"Mr. Winchester, this is Cheryl, a nurse overseeing Castiel's care this afternoon."

"What's happening?"

"About twenty minutes ago, Castiel returned to consciousness," the nurse explained. "He's been fighting the vent. We've x-rayed his chest and his respiratory system is greatly improved. The doctor would like to remove the vent if you approve."

"Yeah, do it." Dean gave a communicative nod to Bastet over the phone. "I just rolled up in the parking lot. I'll be up there in a minute."

"Oh, wonderful. I'll tell Castiel then."

As Dean ended the call, he told Bastet what the nurse said, not that either of them were surprised by the news. They'd just been with Castiel in Heaven and now, racing up the stairwell to the lobby level of the hospital where the elevators were, Dean realized he would have to muster an appropriate emotional reaction to the shock of Castiel's miracle recovery. He didn't know what to expect though--whether Castiel's body was fully healed by Mother Mary's grace or if he was only healed enough to get out of the hospital without arousing too much attention on the bizarre suddenness of his awakening.

The pair of them took a turn in the stairwell and the industrial door leading to the lobby finally came into sight. Dean grabbed his phone again, locating his brother in the contacts with barely a glance at his hand.

Bastet halted him with a touch. "Let me alter my appearance."

"What?" His brother picked up, distracting him for a moment. "Hey, Sammy. Yep, I'm okay now. Cas is awake. You gotta tell Mina for me. I'm headed into the hospital now."

As he caught Sam up on the details, Bastet's arm rising above her head caught his eye. He watched with detached interest. Their lives had been an endless succession of magic, spells, angels, gods, and goddesses, after all, and nothing really surprised him anymore. Bastet's slender finger twirled over her head, creating a small, well-controlled tornado of air that kicked up the dust neglected in the stairwell. Squinting, Dean took a step back as her clothes shifted from the gorgeous white linens worn in Heaven.

"What are you doing?" he mumbled over his brother.

"What?" Sam said.

"Not you," replied Dean. "Miss Kitty's having a costume change."

Brothers exchanged vital information about the state of Heaven's involvement in Lia's rescue. Meanwhile, luxurious cloth slipped over Bastet's head and extended her sleeves and skirt length. Tornadic wind rippled her new ensemble as magic brought it to life, leaving Dean a bit uneasy when he recognized what she wore. The cloth over her head covered her hair, ears, and throat like a hijab and she wore the long-sleeved, floor-length dress nipped at the waist that Muslim women often did. Then he began to sweat a bit as he wondered if he identified her clothing right, and sweat even more wondering if she looked right in her disguise.

"You're gonna get us in trouble," he warned.

"Why?" Bastet blinked up at him. The elongated cat eyes shifted like dye in water to a human shape, though something about it didn't look quite normal.

He pulled the phone away from his mouth. "If you're wearing that wrong, you're gonna upset people who are actually part of that religion. You know what I mean. We can't attract attention right now."

Sam's voice blared through the tiny metallic microphone in the phone. "What's going on? What's she wearing?"

Giggling, Bastet shook her head encased in a deep green hijab, and rubbed Dean's arm. "Darling boy, I'm Egyptian." She shrugged. "I'm old Egyptian, yes, but I know my people. Islam is the dominant religion of my country now, though many people still worship Isis, me, and our fellows in private. You needn't concern yourself. I know how to dress." She lifted the hem of her skirt around the back. "I do believe my tail, my ears, my eyes, and my teeth would cause a bit of a stir more than a hijab, don't you? At least I can say this is fashion." Her hand wriggled to display her fingernails in perpetual claw shapes. "I wear what I must to walk among mortals. Now let's go visit Castiel."

They strode through the hospital lobby, Bastet's posture tall and confident, while Dean's head and shoulders hunched into himself as he talked to his brother. She took the lead and found the bay of elevators without effort.

"I'm gonna lose you in the elevator," Dean told his brother.

"Okay," replied Sam. "Mina just left for the hospital."

"Great." He nodded even if Sam couldn't see him. "Later."

Leaning back against the elevator wall gave Dean a moment of quiet as the mechanism swooped them up to the intensive care floor. He hadn't told Sam the part about Mother Mary allowing Castiel and him to participate in Lia's rescue only if they absorbed her grace and became angels. In truth, he couldn't wrap his own mind around it yet let alone find the right way to explain it to his brother and sister-in-law. There was nothing he wouldn't do for his child, of course, but angelic grace was a huge pill to swallow. Most angels were egomaniacs, cold, and unfeeling toward everything except themselves. Only a few proved their worth to him. The possibility of becoming a dickwad robot was definitely something to chew on, he reasoned, but so was the power to kill demons with the snap of a finger. But what if something went wrong and he couldn't reclaim his humanity? What would that mean for his family? What would that mean for his marriage? What would that mean for his child?

For the moment, the only thing he could control was seeing Castiel alive and on his way to recovery. The elevator opened on the intensive care floor and Bastet hung close to Dean as they maneuvered around a clump of doctors in surgical scrubs and white lab coats. He checked his watch, realizing it was time for rounds before the shifts changed into nighttime doctors. The fact that he knew that meant Castiel spent too much time in the hospital for Dean's comfort, yet it had only been a few days.

A nurse's head popped up from her computer at the central station and she smiled, rising to meet him. "Ah, Mr. Winchester. You've given your protection officer quite a scare. He hasn't been able to locate you all day, so...." She gestured to the officer standing outside of Castiel's room.

"I needed quiet with my family," Dean said quickly.

"That's understandable." The nurse, nodding and gesturing for him to follow along with Bastet, accepted his excuse without question. "We weren't expecting Castiel to come back to consciousness this soon. He didn't wake quickly, of course. These things take time. When I called you, he'd just begun to fight the vent and the doctors had it removed as soon as you gave permission. We asked you because we weren't certain of his cognitive ability to make decisions yet but he seems quite lucid now. I'm sure he'll be relieved to see you. We haven't told him about your daughter though--not without knowing what you thought was best first."

"I'm sure he knows," said Dean flatly. "He was there when it happened."

The protection officer rocked on his heels as they approached. "Mr. Winchester, where have you been today? The KCPD can't protect you if you won't let us. This is hardly appropriate behavior."

"Tell you want," Dean replied, smiling maliciously, "how 'bout I kidnap your kid and try to kill your wife and then we can compare notes on appropriate behavior. Won't that be fun?"

A pale pallor came over the officer. He stuttered.

Dean gave him a friendly slap on the arm. "Take a load off, buddy. I'll watch the patient now."

He slid through the glass door to Castiel's room before the officer had a chance to formulate a response. The nurse struggled to contain her amusement while Bastet gave a warning squeeze to his wrist. He knew. The Queen of Heaven had instructed them to cooperate with the human authorities to keep them out of the angels' way but he just couldn't stomach being lectured on his behavior. He wasn't a child. He was a father enduring an attack on his family as best as he could.

Though pale with dark circles under his eyes, Castiel's face brightened as soon as Dean entered his intensive care room. He was awake. His soul was firmly rooted in the body reclining in a hospital bed tilted up at the head. Blue eyes shined with life as much as they did with worry. Yes, he clearly knew exactly where he'd been, how their daughter was stolen, and how he'd been sprung from Heaven's antechamber. Everything flashed between Dean and Castiel with a single look. Every question and every answer flowed between them without the nurse or the cop outside the room guessing at anything supernatural.

"Dean," he said hoarsely, testing a dry, unused throat, "have you found Lia? How long has it been?"

"A couple of days," Dean replied, nervously licking his lips. "N-no, we haven't found Lia yet but everybody's working on it. Police, me, the family...." To temper the sting of bad news, Dean carefully leaned over the bed and hugged Castiel around the tubes and hospital gown. "I swear, Cas. We're gonna find her." He kissed Castiel's neck, his cheek, and his lips. It had been too long. Gratitude surged through him at feeling a living, breathing man in his arms again.

He mumbled into Dean's shoulder. "I must get up. I must take a leave of absence from my charity and--"

"Hold on, hold on." Dean pulled back enough to look down at Castiel's face. "You gotta take it easy. Can't have you rushing outta here. It's a miracle you're awake right now after what you've been through." An arched brow and an inclined face hopefully made the point for Dean that Castiel couldn't just leave yet. Their Queen had instructed them not to attract too much unwanted attention. He added, "You're safe in the hospital 'till you get stronger."

"Yes, you should listen to Dean. He loves you so." Coming along the opposite side of the bed, Bastet spoke sweetly and patted Castiel's knee, unable to get around the nurse checking his IV bag.

Castiel's brows furrowed, seeing the Egyptian goddess wearing a hijab and long dress.

She smiled and winked, quite amused by his confusion. If the nurse had looked any closer, she would have seen the feline's tail curling happily through the drapes of her long skirt.

*****

Flipping through hundred-year-old books with one hand and bouncing a fussy baby with the other was second nature to Sam. His toddler sat at one of the bunker library tables (on a stack of books) coloring on printer paper, while his newborn verbalized his impatience for a feeding in the crook of his elbow. He gently bounced Henry but the newest addition to the family had an appetite like his father and uncle. Bobby stuck his tongue out as he carefully navigated tiny circles on his paper.

Sam swayed on his feet at the head of a table as he read a crumbling book. "Hang on, little man. Mommy's gone to see Uncle Cas. I'll get you a tasty bottle as soon as I'm done reading this pa...." His voice trailed off when he turned the page, immediately greeted by the medieval illustration of the Gates of Hell.

"What?" asked Krissy, glancing up from her own book. "Find something?"

"Medieval drawing of what the place looks like." Ever careful of exposing his boys to darkness too fast, Sam avoided calling it the Gates of Hell. "Might be useful. No way of knowing this is what it really looks like but the Latin description down here's pretty specific."

Rising from her table and joining him over the medieval text, Krissy's eyes narrowed not with emotion but grim determination. She studied the black gates jutting from the ground in the illustration. It was an illustration meant to frighten medieval people into submitting to Christianity but Krissy's expression reminded Sam of numbness. It was, he decided, the same sort of numbness coming from a person who bore the weight of self-imposed guilt. She blamed herself for everything that befell the Winchesters with her arrival and, although technically true, Krissy had done the best thing she could at the time. She got in over her head with artifacts straight from Heaven in her possession and she reached out to the only people who could help.

Sam wanted to tell her those things. He wanted to tell her about how even the best hunters sometimes stumbled into situations with awful consequences in their desire to do good in the world. He certainly was an expert in that kind of guilt. But he couldn't enter such a heavy conversation with a hungry, fussy newborn baby in his arms.

"The demons have dwellings," she said as her fingertips grazed the outline of faint, small structures beyond the imposing black gates. "Look here. I'm betting demon society mimics human society with houses and outbuildings at least. It's not just the medieval interpretation. I've seen similarities in Japanese art and even old Viking art too. They're not always called literal demons but evil spirits are much more tethered to the human hosts than good spirits like angels." Her mind worked through it in silence for a moment and her fingertip tapped the book page. "I don't think demons want anyone to know how they keep dwellings like these inside the Gates. Look here--there's the palace Dean was told about before. What is that?"

They both bent over the book and examined the details.

"Bones, I guess. Mounted over doorways in ritualistic patterns," Sam supposed as he unconsciously patted Henry's bottom.

"What ritual?"

"Well, most people do that kind of thing to protect themselves."

Krissy nodded in agreement. She fluttered a distracted hand at the baby. "Go on. Look after your little guys. I'm gonna keep dissecting these images and see if I can't find some clue about where they've got Lia or some weakness in their infrastructure."

"Yeah, gotta warm up a bottle and put Henry to bed. Bobby? C'mon, buddy. Mommy said you gotta have a bath after dinner." He put a hand on Krissy's shoulder and leaned in discreetly. "Hey, I know you're a grown woman and everything but take my advice. You can't keep pushing yourself this hard. I mean, you're still wearing yesterday's clothes, which means you haven't slept."

"I'll sleep when I've fixed this mess," she muttered, detached, as she thumbed through the book.

He recognized himself in that response--Dean too, really--and nobody had been able to lessen the burdens of their guilt. Whether blaming herself actually helped anything or not, she was still going to let it push her harder and run her into the ground. He only hoped they found Lia before the guilt ate her alive.

"I'll be back to help you more after I put my kids to bed," Sam offered.

Krissy only offered a shallow nod.

*****

The only way Dean had been able to leave Castiel's bedside was because Amina took over the vigil for him. With her nursing training, he only trusted her to watch over his husband while he drove back to the bunker for a shower and much needed four hours of sleep. Dying and being resurrected all in one afternoon took it out of him. Go figure.

Windshield wipers swooped back and forth, hypnotizing Dean as he drove through the rain. Years of traversing highways on no sleep gave him the confidence to keep going if only to see his brother and nephews for a little while. On the other hand, being too close to Bobby and Henry might remind him of the void left by Lia's absence. It burned and spread through his chest if he let himself think of it too hard. He had no idea if he should see his nephews or not the more he thought about it since he could, in the sanctuary of his Impala, admit that his sanity was barely in tact.

At least Castiel was alive. He made sure of that. In the next day or so, the surgeons were talking about letting him move to a regular hospital room on a different floor. Castiel had wanted to leave as soon as he came to consciousness, but as Dean had suspected, Mother Mary healed him enough to give him life but not enough to rouse suspicion among humans. He still had stab wounds, though the surgeon said they were healing at a remarkable rate, and those stab wounds would certainly leave scars. Every time Castiel looked at his naked torso, he'd be reminded of it. Dean hated that for him and let the hatred of that tiny detail nag at him, distracting him from the hatred of not having his baby girl to put to bed that night. Picking at the smaller scabs seemed more manageable than picking at the gaping hole in his heart.

Outside of Seneca, nearly halfway home on the four hour drive, Dean grumbled at the gas gauge in his dash. He hadn't been paying attention but normally never let the Impala drop below a quarter tank. The line hovered on empty, making him coast into the first gas station he found.

Dean stretched out of the car as rain pelted his hair and clothes. No one else fed gas into their cars but all of the bright outdoor lights were on and he spotted a cashier inside the attached convenience store. So he jammed the gas pump into his car and waited for it to fill. Just two more hours and he could collapse into bed. That thought alone revived him enough to feel the faint sensation of hunger. A gas station sub sandwich sounded tempting and wouldn't interrupt the drive like stopping at a diner even though that promised better food.

The constant low hum of every gas station in America greeted Dean as he strode through the glass door. He weaved through the four aisles, plucking barbecue chips, a liter of Coke, and the coveted sub sandwich from refrigerated cases in the back.

"Hey, how's it going," he mumbled as a statement rather than an invitation for conversation when he dropped his spoils on the counter.

The cashier nodded an ambiguous greeting as he rang up Dean's purchases. "This gonna be all for you, then?"

"Yep," Dean said, finding his wallet in his back pocket.

"Some storm going on out there."

Dean nodded noncommittally. "Yep."

"I'd hate to think your daughter's out there in such violent weather."

Going still, Dean looked at the clerk for the first time. His scalp prickled and alerted him to the danger even if his logical mind tried to feebly convince him that the clerk knew about the kidnapping from television reports. Castiel's political notoriety had the unusual side effect of fame for the both of them and he knew their child's kidnapping led to public interest. Even so, the stillness--the emptiness--surrounding the gas station suggested otherwise.

In the same moment that Dean grabbed for the angel blade tucked in his waistline, the cashier's eyes went purple--purple?--as he leaped over the counter. A predator's skill had his fist latched around Dean's throat. Demonic strength lifted Dean off his feet with ease and hurled him backwards into the slushee machine. The wind got knocked out of Dean as his back slammed into the machinery and he crumpled on the floor, gasping for air. He felt the burn of sulfur fingerprints around his throat. Only a moment had Dean launching to his feet again, though his mind went sluggish and churned through the information in slow motion.

Empty gas tank. Must've been a demon trick.

Purple eyes. What the fuck mutated demon had purple eyes?

Right hook, left punch. Knock him off balance. Dean had an uncanny ability to separate his brain from his body as he fought. He coached himself into pounding the demon cashier's face into a crunchy, bloody mess, although the hellish creature only cackled with every strike. Fighting a demon--finally getting his hands on one--revived Dean and his rage poured freely from his fists. Before he knew it, both he and the demon were dangerously battered in the melee but he had it cornered on the floor behind the counter.

The creature looked up at Dean through one slit of an eye, the other having been beaten into a swollen bloody mess. He laughed low in his chest, which enraged Dean even more. Crouching, he grabbed the demon by his throat, payback in fact, and pointed the tip of his angel blade at its heart.

"Who are you?" growled Dean through his teeth.

It sneered. "We are many. We are powerful."

"Ditch the shitty Exorcist movie crap. Who the fuck are you? What demon species?"

"A servant of the great Valefar," he hissed low and dramatically.

Irritated, Dean shook him by a clump of his shirt over his chest. "Where's my daughter?"

"Not my job." The thing calling himself a servant of Valefar shrugged.

Dean didn't realize he punched the demon again until he felt the vessel's bones crunch under the power of his fist. "One more chance, dickhead!" he raged. "Where the hell's my daughter?"

Coughing up blood, Valefar's servant spat a pair of broken teeth on the floor. He smiled darkly through the red streaks running down his face. "You ought to know. You sent Mommy's delegation, didn't you?" It struck him as amusing and he broke into stuttering, weakened laughter. "We got one of 'em. String up the damn thing upside down and plucked feathers one by one. That's like torture to angels, you know." Clarity opened his good eye more. "Say, how is Castiel these days? He wasn't part of the job but it certainly was a nice office bonus to bag him."

The creature said enough and Dean couldn't take the sulfur breath anymore. He stood, still gripping Valefar's servant by a fistful of his shirt, and sliced into the side of his throat. Deep purple smoke leaked from the wound.

He screamed in a multitude of voices but managed to shout, "Wait! I have a message!"

"Then say it," Dean snarled.

Valefar's servant panted as his demonic body continued leaking from the vessel. He only had moments left. "Queen Abaddon commands that you summon Geraldine within the next four days. You will give her the artifacts in exchange for your little royal brat. If you don't make contact after four days, the Princess of Heaven will be fed to the hellhound breeding kennel."

Just the thought of Lia being surrounded by creatures like that one spun Dean into a blind rage once more. He had nothing to say, moving swiftly, and almost watching himself from above as he let go of the demon long enough to throw another series of punches. His knuckles bled. The creature laughed through his beating and fought back for his own amusement. His fist struck a softened bit of flesh where Dean's cheekbone had once been, which drew him back to his own body. There was the awareness. The blood. The crunching bones in his hands and face. He may have taken his rage out on a demon but he paid a price for it.

With the last of his strength, Dean stood over the demon and raised the angel blade high over his head. Both fists wrapped around the hilt brought renewed force as he plunged the silver blade into the demon's chest. Valefar's servant convulsed beneath Dean, straddling his body and stabbing his chest again and again and again. Sickening purple light flashed through the body until it went deathly still. Even then, Dean couldn't stop himself. Blood splattered up over his chest, his shoulders, and over the whole of his face.

Dean didn't know how long he let his anger and sorrow consume him, but when he finally fell backwards against a magazine rack, he had no strength. His body shuddered of bone-deep exhaustion. Wrathful tears coursed down his face and washed away the blood in tiny streams. The body stretched out motionless before him.

Groping for his phone, blood-spattered fingers fumbled with the slippery screen. Shit. He could barely read it through the sticky smear.

"Sammy!" he mumbled hoarsely. The pain of his own injuries was really beginning to set in and he squeezed his eyes shut. "Sammy, you gotta come get me. Gas station on the highway west of Seneca. No! No, I'm not okay. I got trapped by a demon. Yeah, hurry."


	14. Chapter 14

"Dean? Dean!"

"He's going to vomit. Turn him or he'll aspirate."

Two sets of hands pawing at Dean's body ignited his pain once more. He'd been rolling somewhere on a sea of empty blackness since he managed to call his brother. His brain struggled to recall the details. There was a man--no, a demon. Valley something. That wasn't it. Valefar. And terrifyingly foreign purple eyes. Now he remembered, the retching and pain bringing him further back into the waking world. A demon derailed his journey home from Castiel's bedside at the hospital to taunt him about Lia and to instruct him in an exchange for her life that simply wasn't possible.

Blurred vision soon sharpened and, wiping his mouth, he saw Sam and Amina kneeling over him. The nurse already had his shirt torn open and fingers prodding at his lower ribs on the left side. Her blue eyes flickered to his face, quickly moving her skilled hands to examine what he guessed were rather severe facial wounds. They hadn't seen the fight. In fact, Dean had no idea how Amina got there in the first place.

Amina eyed her husband over Dean's body, speaking as if he wasn't there. "At least one broken rib. His cheek needs stitches--maybe his temple too."

"Can you take care of him?" Sam asked, all business.

"He needs a hospi--"

"--No," growled Dean as he tried to sit up. "No hospitals. We patch up ourselves and get on with the job."

They both dropped their attention down to him and pawed at his shoulders again in a vain attempt to keep him lying on his elbow. But Dean would have none of it. He batted an arm and pushed Sam back, who then shook his head at Amina to call her off too.

Staggering to his feet, Dean hugged himself around the ribs, not that it eased his broken rib much. He shuffled over to the empty meatsuit, the dead body, and saw nothing of a wasted human life but only the evil of a parasite demon. The body had slumped lifelessly, still bearing Dean's angel blade in his chest and Dean stooped with a grunt to yank it out. He spat on the dead thing. In truth, he should have respected the human life lost to the poison of Hell but the rage over his kidnapped baby spurned him on even through bloody, battered wounds of his own. It had been a hell of a fight. That was for sure. Dean counted himself stronger and more fearsome for having come out on top and thought yes, yes, he was evenly matched with the power of Hell.

"Dean...." Coming up at his side, Sam touched his arm.

Dean flinched.

Carefully, Sam asked, "What happened? Who is this guy?"

"Demon. Haven't seen this kind before. Purple eyes. I don't...." Dean trailed off, knowing he wasn't making sense. He faced his brother and sister-in-law, regrouped, and tried again. "Abaddon sent this demon to tell me they'd captured one of the angels in Mother Mary's envoy. They tortured whoever the angel was. He said Abaddon demands I summon a demon called Geraldine to arrange the exchange of Heaven's artifacts for Lia's life." His voice trailed off again as he decided not to report the threat to feed his baby to the hellhound kennels. "He had purple eyes. Said he was Valefar's servant."

"Valefar?" Confused and agitated, Sam flung a questioning look at his wife.

Amina shrugged just as confused and apologetically so. "I don't know."

It didn't surprise Dean that none of them recognized the word. Still clutching his battered chest, he staggered to the shattered gas station doors and stepped over glittering glass. "We gotta get back to the bunker and get going on this shit. Is Cas protected at the hospital?"

"Yes, I left him with the feline," replied Amina, still unable to let go of her fear of cats and her inability to call Bastet by her name. She hovered close. "Dean, you need medical attention."

"Good thing my brother married an ER nurse then," he said flatly, trudging ahead.

"Dean--"

"--My child is gone! Gone, Mina!" snapped Dean as he whipped around too hard and winced forcibly with the stabbing pain. "They tried to kill my husband! They could still kill my child because I don't have the artifact shit they think I do and Heaven's dragging their feet about helping me! I'm alone in this! If I don't get Lia back, it's on me! I'm failing as a father! I don't give a flying fuck about my busted face or my broken rib until my baby's back in her family! You read me?"

The former angel stood tall and unblinking as Dean released built-up pressure on her. She bore it silently, which would have been a thing to admire if he wasn't losing his mind with terror and rage.

"Fine," Amina replied evenly. She extended an open hand. "I'm driving. Give me the keys, get in the car, and shut up. You can't drive like that."

As it turned out, Dean's body rejected his desire to work the clues the demon left behind and his brain blurred over his arrival at the bunker. More hands pawed at his sore body as, he guessed, his family and Krissy supported the sluggish journey up to his room. There, as if waiting until his beaten limbs found the bed, Dean collapsed against the sister-in-law who bravely bore his verbal assault just a few hours before and he lost consciousness. His willpower was no match for his bodily need for rest and healing after all, no matter what he did to keep his brain cranking through Lia's kidnapping.

He woke not knowing how much time passed. A lamp stood vigil on his nightstand but, through swollen eyes, he didn't sense any other presence in the room. Bedsheets felt cool and soft on his skin, making him realize he'd been stripped to his boxers.

One of his tentative hands explored his chest. His fingers encountered gauze edges poking out from cotton fabric tightly bound around the whole of his torso. Though he still hurt, something about the binding made his injury somehow feel more stable. Unconsciousness allowed time for his split lip to swell terribly, although he felt the blood had been thoroughly washed away. It had been washed away thereto from his nose--no, not broken but fucking sore--and various gashes up the side of his face too. Another gauze bandage covered the left side of his forehead in a bold square exactly in the spot where Amina had told Sam about him needing stitches. She must have done the job while he was passed out cold.

Dean was on the point of getting up, or trying it anyway, when his bedroom door opened and Amina swooped in with a tray carefully balanced on one arm. He forced his swollen eyes open more to gauge her mood after what he'd done in a moment of desperation. Dean was fully prepared, in fact, for a verbal beating in return. She proved time and again just how she was that kind of woman, unwilling to put up with Winchester tantrums.

"Good, you're up," said Amina with a half-smile. "You're gonna eat this terrible canned stew your brother microwaved, and then you're gonna drink every drop of this bottled water with these antibiotics. Don't ask how I got them. Then we'll talk about letting you get up."

"I thought I banned canned food in this family," Dean groused in a raspy voice.

"We're running low on bunker supplies. It's been years since we've lived here. Slow, now. Up a little bit on your pillow. That's right." She sat on the edge of the bed and put the tray between them, which also contained the latest copy of Cosmo magazine. She plucked her treasure and began leisurely leafing through it.

Dean eyed her. "Really? You're gonna sit here and watch me eat?"

"Yep," she said nonchalantly, flipping a page. "You threw a tantrum like my son, so I think you must need supervision with messy food like my son too."

He tried to roll his eyes but it hurt too much. "All right, all right." He grasped his spoon and began eating the greasy, thick beef stew. "Look, I'm sorry I yelled at you in Seneca." Another spoonful made it past his split lip. "I'm at the end of my rope and I kinda smacked you around with it."

"It's fine," Amina replied. "You're suffering more than anyone should. I just want to make sure your head's right about who's on your side here."

"I know," he said quietly, nodding into his food. "Thanks for patching me up."

"Oh, it's nothing. It's so much easier when you're not awake to yell."

"I wanna ask you something," he said nearly on top of her. It was a spontaneous decision, getting her advice, but it was too late to take it back now. "Thing is I'm running out of options in all this but there's an option I haven't told anybody about yet."

"Which is?" Amina's head inclined to one side just the way Castiel's did when he was curious about something. They were definitely siblings who adopted the vessels of siblings.

Here went nothing. "Mother Mary brought me to Heaven, you know. We had a meeting and she healed Cas. You know that too. I think. I'm having trouble putting stuff together in my head. Think I took a beating on my skull." Pausing, he ate more stew. "I was ready to go fight right then and there when she started talking about Lia being a Princess of Heaven and how an envoy has to be sent to try negotiation because I guess there are treaties out there meant to stop more wars like the one we fought. She wouldn't let me and Cas go down there guns blazing 'til the envoy came back with news."

"I understand," replied Amina, nodding. "What can you do?"

Dean sighed. "Well, she'll only let Cas and me play an active role in fighting if we take our graces. Remember she gave me a grace years ago to keep."

Pursing her lips, Amina soon pressed her fingertips to her mouth and gazed into the empty middle distance for a minute of silent contemplation. Dean spooned a hunk of beef and a hunk of potato into his mouth, watching her turn it over in her thoughts. Canned food really was utterly tasteless. He wondered if that (probably) expired can of stew was going to be his last meal as a human for a while. Or maybe forever. It seemed both daunting and sad.

"I'm always a loyal servant to our goddess," she began carefully, "but it's no secret the Great Mother's wanted you to join her host for years. I don't even want to suggest it but I must."

"You think she's using Lia's kidnapping to stick my feather in her cap."

"It's probably not her entire motivation but she's a wise, clever goddess and I'm certain it hasn't escaped her notice," replied Amina, peering down at him leaning on his elbow in bed.

He hadn't thought of it until then but he took it in and filed it away in the back of his mind. "I'm gonna do what it takes to get my baby back."

Brows arched, Amina gaped at him. "You're really going to become an angel to join the fight? Dean, you have no idea what it means to be one of us."

"I married one, didn't I? And my brother did too," he countered pointedly.

That stunned Amina and she leaned back with a hard blink of disbelief. "You don't even know what our true forms look like in Heaven. You've only seen what we allow you to see so the full truth doesn't frighten you but here you are being so cavalier like taking in your grace is no different than drinking a beer. Do you even know how big Castiel actually was?"

"Same size as the Chrysler building," he said, grinning.

"Uh-huh, and did he tell you seraphim are made of fire and some have three heads? Three sets of wings?"

"...No."

"Let me lay it out for you, brother mine. Cas was, as a seraph, made of fire. Literal fire, Dean. And you will be too if you take in your grace. His angelic body was made of liquid bluish white light in human eyes, but in Heaven, he perpetually burned red. Pure energy. And because Cas was such a highly placed seraph of power, he was even more brilliant. The closest English meaning of seraph is 'the burning ones'. Sometimes they're mistaken in art as dragons with humanoid heads by humans who try to imagine them. Seraphim limbs are longer and thinner than human ones and they don't wear clothes because God decreed clothing was a vanity beneath angels." She paused and let it sit--he could tell. She was trying to scare him out of going through with it. "And the power, Dean. You can't comprehend it in your present state."

"Jimmy Novak said it was like being strapped to a comet."

"That's true for the vessel. For you? You'd actually be the comet in the driver's seat without knowing how to drive."

"Okay," he said, the syllable drawn out thoughtfully. "I hear what you're saying."

"Good," she replied and let the tension fade.

Dean turned his gaze up to his concerned, protective sister-in-law and let his bravado recede in favor of sincerity. "Put yourself in my shoes though. Abaddon ordered Bobby or Henry kidnapped and her henchmen almost killed Sammy in the kidnapping. Your baby's gone. Stuck in Hell without kisses or love or baby bronchitis medicine in Lia's case. If the Queen of Heaven gave you a way to save your children and spill some demon blood, wouldn't you take it? I think you would. There's no such thing as going too far for our kids."

"I don't...." Tears sprang to her eyes and she turned away, though Dean still observed her profile contorting in anguish. "I can't think about it."

"I think you are though," Dean said quietly without malice. "And I think you know you'd do whatever it takes to save them. I think you know I'm right."

She turned back to him, hands braced on her legs as if the image of her babies being stolen by demons brought on physical pain. Her red-rimmed eyes seemed brighter blue in the light of tears, making her look even more like Castiel. A faint sigh fought to loosen her body's grip on fear.

"You can't do it without my brother. Either both of you do it together or neither of you do it at all. It's too dangerous for you to go about it alone."

Dean nodded and stuck out his hand. "Deal, sis."

"Deal," she repeated faintly as she shook his hand.

At that moment, as if on cue, Sam opened the door to Dean's bedroom and stuck his head inside, but tilted at curiously upon seeing his wife in tears. "What'd you do to my wife?"

Amina opened her mouth but Dean cut her off. "We're just blowing off some steam. Nothing to worry about. Everything's fine." He looked at his sister-in-law. "Right?"

"Yes," she replied, wiping her eyes and composing herself.

"Okay, well, I need you guys downstairs. We've, uh, we've got a visitor." Sam's eyes passed between the two of them rather skeptically but he didn't push the issue any further. He nodded a little bit awkwardly and tossed a pair of jeans at Dean from his dresser. "You can walk, right?"

"I'm fine," said Dean stubbornly.

Husband and wife linked hands and murmured between themselves as they disappeared down the hall. Dean heaved himself out of bed, wincing as he did so, and he already looked forward to the moment when he could go back to bed. That thought immediately ran him through with guilt as soon as his daughter's face rose in his mind. She didn't have the option of sleeping in her own bed. And as he pulled on his jeans, Lia's playpen in the corner of the room caught his eye. He lumbered over to the temporary bed she'd used in the bunker and picked up a white and pink stuffed bunny.

"I love you, baby," he murmured to the stuffed toy. "Hang on a little longer. Daddy's coming to get you."

Leaving Lia's things where they were for her return home, Dean made his way downstairs with out bothering to put on socks or a shirt. He wore his bandages, bruises, and lacerations out in the open for whoever came to the bunker that night. Both Heaven and Hell needed to know what kind of soldier he really was--unwilling to quit no matter how many beatings he took.

Gathered among the library tables were Krissy, Sam, and Amina all looking at one extremely tall figure speaking in a cold monotone. At first, the image of a Halloween costume came to Dean's mind as he looked at the man, the stranger, standing in his library. He looked like he wore the old armor and oddly historical red wool skirt of an ancient Roman soldier. He approached quietly, observing and taking in the dent in the armor and the filth covering the man from head to toe. One soldier recognized another even though Dean didn't yet know the warrior's identity.

Sam glanced at Dean loitering in the doorway and the others followed suit. The soldier turned too, carrying a bundle in his gnarled hands and Dean immediately recognized his vaguely Native American features. Angels must have dressed in military uniforms much like the way they were depicted in Biblical art after all.

"Gadreel," he mumbled.

"Yes." He nodded and didn't quite look human doing so even though he wore a vessel. "I've come straight from the Gates of Hell on my way back home to our Queen."

"Are you the only one left?" Dean asked, already going numb.

Gadreel admitted, "I am."

The news stabbed him full of fresh wounds that his sister-in-law couldn't treat. Dean looked away and swore under his breath. If there was only one angel left in the envoy, it meant Hell wanted it that way. They wanted Gadreel to go back to Heaven and report all of the gruesome details to fan the flames of war. Their entire goal suddenly became clear in his eyes. If angels were being killed by demons, certain retribution would happen and it would completely make every treaty signed by the Queen of Hell null and void. She was trying to cause enough chaos to pit other gods and goddesses against each other. She was looking for another cosmic wore that would distract everyone long enough for her to take control of Earth and the power drawn from human souls.

"They're using my little girl as a pawn because she's a Princess of Heaven," theorized Dean, looking to Gadreel for confirmation.

"Yes, I think so. She's the next generation, the heir after Castiel, though I'm not sure Her Celestial Majesty told you so in explicit terms. Your daughter's quite an important figure in Heaven and she should have been better protected but you never heard me say so," he said as much as Dean hoped he would argue the idea. Stepping forward, he handed Dean the bundle in his hands in the same pose a soldier used when handing over the American flag to a grieving widow. "I found something that I believe belongs to you. I wanted to return it to you personally and express my regret that I was unable to bring your daughter home instead of this. She's still alive. I saw her with my own eyes. You can take comfort in that."

A heaving sort of sobbing sigh came out of Dean against his will as his fingers brushed the soft fleece of the baby blanket. It had come from his daughter's crib, clearly taken when the demons kidnapped her. Before he lost control, he reminded himself that he needed to keep a clear head and he composed himself.

"I am at your service," the angel continued. "Call on me to help you find the young princess and I will fight for her."

That did seem to help, surprisingly, and it fueled Dean's desire to move ahead with his plan. He looked to the others and said, "We need to break Cas out of the hospital. Gadreel, you can heal him."

"Yes, I can," he replied with a dozen questions in his eyes.

"Great," Dean said a little louder, more decidedly. "Go back to the Queen upstairs and tell her about my decision. I'm gonna take my grace. I'm gonna become one of you and I'm going down to Hell and killing every one of those fuckers I can get my hands on. Cas will be there at my side." Pausing, he ignored the gaping look of shock on his brother's face. "But you tell her it's all on one condition. That condition is I'm removing my grace as soon as my daughter's safe at home. I'm not gonna be an angel for eternity. Neither will Cas. It's not the life we want but it's the only option we have to stop another war now. He'll see that when I talk to him."

Gadreel offered a shallow nod and set his mouth in a flat, dutiful line. He already knew about the proposal, it seemed, but Dean didn't mean for his brother to find out that way.

"When can you come back?"

"Dawn," replied Gadreel. "Only a few hours. I'll gather up my best soldiers and we'll be here as soon as we can."

"Great. Thanks." There was no room for sentiment or emotion in that moment but Dean needed a way to express his gratitude. Since Gadreel treated Lia's crib blanket like a sacred object, Dean handed it back to him. "Keep it. You earned it."

"Thank you." With that, the solemn angel dressed as a Roman warrior disappeared.

The moment they were alone, Sam stalked forward and Krissy wasn't far behind him. Only Amina sat on the edge of the nearest library table because she already knew the secret Dean had been hiding since his meeting with Mother Mary. Amina watched the scene unfold in grim silence, fearful reservations painted all over her features. Sam's demanding expression filled Dean's line of vision and broke his quiet eye contact with Amina, his partner in silence. It felt like a hurricane coming at him.

"What the hell are you talking about becoming an angel?" Sam yelled.

Krissy's eyes grew wide and excited rather than terrified. "You're gonna become one of 'em? Holy shit, Dean!"

Shouting over her, Sam sounded more afraid than angry. "You made a decision like this without even talking to me about it first? Or even Cas?! He's your husband! Don't you have any respect for your marriage? You can't just say I'm gonna drink down my angel juice and go to war without even asking him what do he thinks about it!"

Unfortunately, spouses making decisions about being angels or humans was an extremely sensitive subject for Sam after his own wife fought with him for weeks about the state of her species early in their relationship. Some of the same arguments tumbled out of his mouth and Dean didn't say a word, nor did he even allow his face to express any emotion. He remained cool and reserved while Sam unleashed his frustration and anxiety. The decision was made and nothing was going to make him go back on it. Getting his daughter back was the only thing that mattered to him now that he was certain Castiel wouldn't die.

"She's my girl," said Dean in his quietest voice. "I'm not leaving her behind and this is the only option. If we don't do something now, Abaddon will do everything she can to insight a new universe-wide war. Listen to me, Sammy. I have a way to stop it. We've got work to do."

The slow, deliberate way he spoke without raising his voice told his brother that he was immovable in his decision. There was no discussing it anymore. He let it sit for a minute in the room until Sam's expression resolved and softened into something caught between anxiety and regretfully going along with Dean's decision. He huffed out the lingering tirade and ran a hand through his hair.

"You're not going to be an angel forever?" he asked in a smaller voice than they each anticipated from such a substantial man.

"No," Dean replied, clasping his hands behind his back. "I'm never going to abandon this family."

"Swear it," Sam demanded.

It was an odd statement, even for his sometimes overly emotional brother, but Dean complied. He raised his hand like taking an oath in court. "I do solemnly swear I'll never abandon this family and I'm only becoming an angel long enough to get my baby back and stop Abaddon from starting another war."

Sam to his lip, averting his eyes to nothing in particular, and both Krissy and Amina watched him like watching a bomb ready to explode. A slow minute past until he nodded.

"Okay," he said, raising his eyes to Dean's face. "Okay. Let's go get Cas then."


	15. Chapter 15

Incoming.

Sam squinted at the text from his wife, confused as he stood outside of the hospital. He lifted his eyes when a shadow settled over his phone and found Gadreel standing before him, resplendent in his Roman soldier attire paired with an expression lacking all emotion. The longer Gadreel spent away from his vessel, the less he remembered about making it look alive. Angels had no need of breathing, after all, and neither did they need to breathe, two things that made Sam feel like he stood toe-to-toe with a living corpse.

"Morning," said Sam after an awkward throat clearing.

"Has Castiel been removed from the medical facility yet?" Gadreel questioned without preamble.

"No, Dean's up there casing the place now. I'm supposed to distract the cop when he shows up--keep him busy so Dean can hustle Cas out and all that."

"Mm, yes," Gadreel considered, strolling past Sam toward the hospital entrance. "Human law enforcement can be a nuisance."

"Wait, where are you going?"

"To liberate Castiel."

Sam scowled as every scenario of what could go wrong running through his thoughts. "Dressed like that?"

But Gadreel clearly wasn't concerned about his odd costume. A hand rested on the hilt of his sword at his hip in a strikingly casual pose as he strolled into the building. Sam noticed he cut effortlessly through the lobby without a single person looking up as he passed. Evidently it was only Sam's eyes who could see Gadreel, and several other angels dressed in the same Roman soldier costume attracted his eyes along the roof and scattered through the parking lot. No one else saw them, yet they provided Heavenly security for the Winchester family, Sam realized. He analyzed his instincts and found nothing threatening there. They were indeed present for his family, not against them, just as Gadreel had promised.

He peered down at his phone again and texted Amina with a question about whether "incoming" meant Gadreel had been with her at the bunker. She confirmed it quickly, saying he brought two dozen good soldiers with him, some of which were angels she used to know in her old life. A shudder rippled through Sam's stomach the way it did whenever his wife talked about her former species. It was an uncomfortable sensation thinking she could go back if she ever became disillusioned with married life. The fear sometimes nagged at him because he knew he wouldn't survive without his wife.

And on top of it, now it seemed Dean and Castiel were going to become angels too. Sam had been inhuman before. He'd lost his human soul and gained it again. Setting it aside wasn't something he was willing to do if he could help it and he didn't understand humans who could walk that line between species without fear. It was an ugly thing losing a soul and having it shoved back into the body. Dean couldn't comprehend pain like that until he went through it himself because Sam knew there was no talking him out of it. The thought of his entire family choosing to become angels one by one really frightened him though. What if they chose to stay? What if Amina decided to follow them? Sam couldn't follow them too. He just couldn't go through the searing pain of losing his soul again, yet he couldn't be left behind either. He was, in fact, letting his insecurities run away with his imagination and he knew it.

"Hello, Sam."

The sudden voice, familiar and strong, made Sam jump. He turned to see Castiel sauntering closer in a hospital gown and socks, looking as if he'd never been attacked at all. Dean hovered close behind while Gadreel brought up the rear like a Secret Service agent armed with an ancient sword on his hip and what looked like a dagger in his boot.

"Cas, you okay?"

He nodded. "Gadreel healed me." Eyes darkened as he strode by without pausing for a response. "Have you heard what your brother intends to do?"

"Yeah," Sam replied glumly.

Castiel gave a sharp single nod without looking back at Dean and motioned for them to come along with him. "I need clothes. Let's go out of sight quickly so Gadreel can teleport us back to Lebanon."

*****

If Dean thought it was unnerving sleeping in the same room with his kidnapped baby's travel crib, clothes, and toys, he hadn't considered how painful it would be to watch Castiel staring at her things as if she was already dead. He folded his arms over his chest and averted his eyes. The cracked ribs wrapped tightly under his shirt ached horribly but he endured the pain in silence. It was far more agonizing to witness the sense of loss in Castiel's eyes now that he was healed and home from the hospital.

"You don't understand what you're proposing," Castiel murmured, clutching one of Lia's stuffed bears to his chest.

"If you have a better idea, I'm all ears," replied Dean.

A long stretch of silence passed and finally, Castiel shook his head the way a man did in the midst of an argument with himself. "Let me go with Gadreel. We can handle it."

"No." It was Dean's sticking point brought on by his conversation with Amina. "We either go together or we don't go at all. I'm not sitting on my ass here while you wing up with your old soldier buddies and fight those demon dicks without me. Frankly Cas, I've had a lot more time to stew in this than you have and they're not giving Lia up without a fight. Even if we had the holy artifacts to trade, I'm not so sure they'd honor their word. They're demons. Some of 'em eat babies for breakfast--"

"--Dean!"

"Well? What do you think's going on? A tea party?" Dean threw his hands up in exasperation as if it'd make his point stronger.

The silent wall between them struck Dean as fear more than a stubborn refusal to go into battle side by side. Castiel was afraid of making the wrong decision because it wasn't just his life on the line or even Dean's life. It was their child--the family they decided long ago that neither of them deserved but, as it turned out, they did. One wrong move and they'd lose that taste of contentment they'd been holding onto so precariously. Even so, Dean had been so resolute in his plan that he no longer allowed himself to consider the possibility of failure. Once he made his decision, every cell in his body needed to move forward into action. No longer paralyzed by fear, he needed to get Castiel broken through his own sense of indecision and paralysis.

Dean maneuvered around to face Castiel, who sat on the edge of the bed. He lowered to the floor, looking up into his husband's eyes. Neither of them spoke for a time but Dean's hand resting on Castiel's thigh became two hands linked together in a silent desire for connection. He slid his other hand into his jeans pocket and carefully pulled out a matching pair of glass vials glowing bluish-white. They each produced their own light, reflecting brightly off the skin of Dean's calloused and lined palm.

"You don't know what you're proposing," said Castiel without accusation but more of an anxious tone.

Nodding, Dean glanced down at the vials in his hand. "Maybe not directly but I do know we can't trust anyone to save our kid but her dads." He gave Castiel the vial containing his grace and folded his fingers closed over it. "You know what's going on. Abaddon's trying to start another cosmic war and she's using Lia to break all those treaties and stuff. And it's those damn treaties that are making Goddess Mary drag her feet about helping us. She could go and smite Abaddon if she wanted but she won't because she knows going in guns blazing will start another war too. Us going in makes it less political. Less cosmic damage. You know it, Cas. If nobody's gonna help us, we gotta help ourselves. The longer we sit here arguing about it, the more time Lia's stuck at the Gates." He paused and gave Castiel a chance to think about it. "Now again, if you've got a better plan, I'm all ears."

The silence at first suggested an immovable wall in Castiel but a sigh passed through him after a couple of minutes. "You've already agreed to the plan?"

"Yep," Dean replied.

He stared, unblinking, and Dean gave him a confident nod.

*****

If Gadreel wasn't an angel, Sam felt certain that he would have decked him by now. He sat close by instead as if silently claiming his territory. He watched Gadreel observing Amina while she nursed baby Henry there in the library without seeking privacy. She always considered herself among family there in the bunker and didn't think she needed to cover herself in what she called a perfectly natural act. Gadreel, however, was fascinated by the human traditions of reproduction and raising young, as he called it. There he sat across the table from Amina watching her breastfeed. Sam stared the angel down seeking any sign of something salacious in him, which of course, there was none and that meant Sam couldn't deck him like he wanted.

"Is it painful?" Gadreel asked innocently.

"Sometimes. Henry's gentler than Bobby was, but then again, he's still so new."

The angel still wearing his Roman armor nodded. "I see. And the infant acquires all of his nourishment this way?"

Amina nodded. "He'll begin eating more solid food later in the year."

While Sam kept a close eye on the studious angel, he felt Krissy's hand on his shoulder and she leaned over for a quiet whisper. "Are we just supposed to sit here and wait for them to fight it out up there then?" Her eyes flickered up toward the residential wing of the bunker.

"There's nothing we can do. We don't stick our noses into each other's marriages. Kind of an unspoken rule after the kids started coming along," Sam whispered back. "Whatever gets decided, we'll be part of the plan."

"Aren't you scared for them?"

"Scared shitless," he replied honestly.

The admission caused Krissy to give his shoulder a squeeze rather than lie and tell him she knew everything would be all right. No matter what Dean decided--to be an angel or not--they were headed for an ambush against Abaddon's soldiers. It was a tall order, even for the Winchesters, and he considered them far more expendable to Hell simply because the actions weren't directly against them. They were merely pawns in a game to start another cosmic war, to provoke the Queen of Heaven into breaking peace treaties, and that expendability made them far more vulnerable to violence. A few dead Winchesters didn't matter to Hell's larger goals and that fact alone made him anxious.

Sam's eye fell on the fuzzy round head of his youngest boy emerging from a thin nursing blanket as he suckled nourishment from his mother. His hair was coming in darker than Bobby's had at that age. Little marks of individuality reminded him with sudden clarity that he was raising tiny humans who would, Mother Mary willing, grow into people with hopes and dreams far surpassing what he had in his own life. Undercurrents of guilt fluttered beneath fatherly love, knowing Lia being torn away from Dean and Castiel could end in disaster rather than reunion. They wouldn't stop until they found her dead or alive, and rightly so, but perhaps that overwhelming sense of fatherly love prevented him from imagining such a loss among his own children. He couldn't picture it. Not one cell in his body was willing to even acknowledge the possibility of loss on that scale. He'd walk through fire for his wife and children, which was, he realized, precisely what Dean and Castiel intended to do.

Sensing herself being observed outside of Gadreel's curious attention, Amina looked over to Sam, an expression of tenderness softening her eyes. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah," he said in an automatic response. "Just going over things."

"I can fight with you, you know," she pressed again.

"Henry's less than a month old. I don't think--"

"--The instincts of a human mother may prove useful in locating the celestial princess since she is but an infant," interjected Gadreel, who clearly had no recognition of when to interrupt marital discussions and when not. "Amina is quite healthy. I assure you."

"Thank you," Sam said thinly. He fixed his eyes into a blank look, not wanting to cause a strain in the proceedings, but Gadreel knew nothing about his wife. "I think I'm a good judge of my wife's ability to defend her family."

Amina scowled between them. "Hey, guys? Hello? Did we drop back a century or what? I'm pretty good at knowing if I feel ill or not. I don't need my husband and an angel debating about what to do with me like I'm a prim little wife who never opens her mouth except to say yes and no. The family's in trouble. I'm well over halfway through my six-week childbirth recovery and I feel fine. I'm a nurse with emergency training. I'm going. Krissy's going too. You stop coddling the poor little womenfolk, Samuel Winchester. That's the end of it."

"Mina--"

Before Sam could explain himself, two sets of boots paced evenly through the residential corridor and Dean appeared ahead of Castiel. They moved almost in perfect unison as they always did, which told Sam everything he needed to know. Moving in unison meant they were of the same mind again. They reached a decision up in their room.

Dean paused as the family popped to their feet in the library. He said nothing at first but glanced around at each of them like a man trying to memorize his loved ones' faces for the last time. A shudder frightened Sam inwardly, though he remained stoic and unmoving if only to counteract the effects of his brother's fidgety behavior. Grabbing up a shocked Krissy, Dean squeezed her and then moved on to Amina, careful not to crush baby Henry in her arms. He then picked up Bobby, oblivious but soon fussing in response to his uncle's agitation. Beyond him, Sam eyed Castiel for any sign of what he already knew to be true but he merely stood and waited, watching Dean through silently protective--regretful, even--blue eyes.

"You've decided to do it," Amina said soberly.

"Yeah." It came out hoarse like Dean had been yelling. They must have had an epic battle over it.

"Okay then." Sam decided it was best to throw his weight behind his brother rather than waste time for Lia on a futile argument no matter how the whole thing seemed crazy to him. "What's the plan?"

Relief smoothed out some of the lines on Dean's face. He looked like a man who had been battling the world by himself for years, which he had in many ways, but Sam's support strengthened him. His spine straightened a little bit more. Maybe there was even a sigh of relief as well. Castiel supported him, of course, but Sam understood the difference between marital bonds and blood bonds. A nearly undetectable moment passed between brothers--Sam nodding faintly and Dean relaxing just enough to breathe. It occurred to Sam that his brother was frightened of the unknown--of changing species--more than facing Hell without his family's support.

"Cas says we gotta do it in the dungeon," he explained. "I gotta do it alone with him. I don't want anybody else to see me go through the ... uh ... the change and ... and you know."

"I know," Sam replied quietly.

"Go take the kids somewhere safe pretty quick." Finding his footing, Dean began addressing everyone in the room. "Come back here in an hour. We're gonna summon that demon Geraldine like we're supposed to but we're giving her our own terms."

"Which are?" asked Krissy.

"Return the celestial princess unharmed or face the wrath of angels storming the Gates of Hell," said Gadreel in a chilling monotone.

Dean nodded. "What he said."

"I've got weapons hidden here in the bunker," said Castiel, speaking for the first time. "I'm not counting on them returning our child without a fight but we'll give them the chance. That chance is essentially buying time for us to arm ourselves. Gadreel, you--"

"--My soldiers await your orders, sir." The armored angel gave a reverent nod.

"Thank you." Then it was Castiel's turn to let the worry lines smooth away from his features, telling Sam he worried more about the coming fight than Dean taking grace into himself.

A spontaneous mass of flannel and denim latched onto Sam in passing. Dean hugged him the way he hugged Krissy and Amina, taking the younger brother by surprise for a moment. They didn't hug often anymore--less danger in their lives thanks to family decreased the need for it--and the sudden brotherly embrace reminded Sam of all the times they parted uncertain of seeing each other again. He latched his arms around Dean and patted his back. It occurred to him that, just as Dean pulled away and broadened his shoulders in an effort to look confident and imposing, Dean was indeed nervous. Afraid, even.

"You got this, man," encouraged Sam. "We'll be back in no time."

*****

The decent lower into the bunker was marked by silence between Dean and Castiel, though not a tense one. Somehow through the fight to get Castiel onboard with his need to fight alongside him with the most power possible to save their child, the final remaining walls between them crumbled. He hadn't known there were still little walls of separation between them after more than five years of marriage but the screaming fight eroded whatever still divided them. It was one of those horrible fights that could have shattered their relationship but they came out bound tighter in the end. If they could survive their child being kidnapped by the Queen of Hell's underlings, they could survive anything.

Normal people didn't have to deal with that crap, he reflected bitterly.

"I'm locking the door behind us," said Castiel when they came into the dungeon.

Dean turned on the smooth floor painted with a demon trap. "Why?"

"Creating an angel creates a shockwave too," he explained dryly. "Creating two is like detonating a bomb. We don't want to damage the bunker. I'm estimating this is about as bomb-proof as we're going to get here."

"Oh. Okay." Dean didn't know how he felt about the prospect of being a living bomb but he knew the transition wasn't going to be a bed of roses.

Castiel drew nearer and took his hand. "You're certain about this? Once we start, there's no going back."

"Let's get on with it," mumbled Dean. "I'm allowed to be nervous."

A faint smile creased Castiel's mouth and he gave a shallow nod. "Yes, you are. You wouldn't be human if you weren't."

The glass vial throbbed in Dean's pocket as if his grace knew he was about to take it and it couldn't wait to take over his human soul. The damn thing enticed him every time he even looked at it, singing away at him like a siren, which was part of the reason why he hid it away all those years. An undeniable part of him wanted the power it offered. It looked rather innocent glowing in the palm of his hand when he pulled it out of his pocket and worked on his nerve.

"Are you ready?"

"Yep."

With a nod, Castiel pulled his own grace out of his pocket and sauntered to the middle of the room. He'd done it before, Dean reminded himself, and he knew what to expect. Of course he wasn't going to feel the same anxiety about shifting from one species to another.

He looked over at Dean and reached out a hand. Dean answered his beckon and they stood side-by-side holding hands in the middle of the dungeon. His eyes canvased the cold concrete walls thinking that sterility would be the last thing his human eyes saw for a time. He expected to see differently after the change. Everything would be different, if he was honest with himself, and even after he removed his grace, he would remember. Nothing would ever be the same again. Part of him mourned the loss of humanity, while a louder part of him raged with the need to slash his way through demonkind for his daughter. Sacrificing humanity meant nothing as long as Lia lived.

"On three, you throw the vial on the floor in front of you to break the glass and free the grace," Castiel instructed.

"Okay."

"Do not let go of my hand," he emphasised in a hard tone. "Sometimes the shockwave can ricochet the recipient straight up to Heaven. I'll keep you here with me. I have more control. No matter what, hold onto me."

"I will." Dean's stomach churned. His palms began to sweat.

"Dean...."

"What?"

"Dean." His tone lowered and sharpened all at once, making Dean look at him face-to-face. "Look into my eyes. An angel can alter the way it perceives its surroundings and I want you to will yourself to continue seeing me as you do now. I need you to see angels in our vessels. You'll never look at me the same way again after this is over if you see my true form. I won't let you go through that psychological alteration."

His brows arched together and then furrowed. "Never? Cas, I'm not a delicate little flower. I can take it."

"Please, just do this one thing for me," Castiel pressed his point harder and squeezed Dean's hand. "This is putting enough of a strain on our bond. I can't stand to feel you pull away from me even more because the way I really look is alien and frightening to you."

He softened. "Cas--"

"--We have so much at stake. Our little girl needs both of us as strong as we can be for her. No distractions."

"All right," Dean acquiesced reluctantly, shifting where he stood. "Okay. I get it."

"Thank you." Tipping forward, Castiel folded his hands around Dean's jaw and pressed his lips in a hard, steady kiss. When they parted, Castiel still held him close, foreheads resting against each other. "Will yourself to see me as I am now. Don't let go."

"I never will," promised Dean.

They shifted to stand side-by-side again, hands knotted, and vials of glowing grace poised at the ready for each. Dean could do it. He steadied himself with a few deep breaths and thoughts bordering on an internal pep talk. Yes, he was the badass motherfucker who fought demons by the fistful without the benefit of grace. With grace, he would be unstoppable. He was, after all, the Righteous Man who married into what turned out to be Heaven's royal family. Their daughter was a real fucking princess--an heiress to Heaven's throne. Just why he was afraid to become an angel made little sense anymore when he considered his role in the scope of things.

"On three...." Castiel's voice fell on Dean's ears steady and true to their cause.

Dean's jaw set hard and he nodded, deeply focused. "One...."

"....Two...."

"....Three."

A glass vial each shattered on the floor ahead of their feet, spilling light, liquid, gas, and none of those elements all at once. It curled and flowed upward from the floor and seeped into Dean's mouth before many thoughts could coherently connect in his mind.

Initially, the deepest sense of pleasure and completion poured into Dean, though not in the sexual sense. He'd never known such elation, such full-bodied confidence, and as his emotions drained away through his feet, the shackles of self-loathing and self-doubt disappeared. In the next moment, his brimming pleasure slammed into searing pain ripping through his chest. Screaming out loud did little to relieve the pain. His conscious mind understood the fiery pain was little more than his grace suffocating his soul and taking control.

Strength filled his body but so did a sense of detachment. Skin, muscle, bone, and sticky blood suddenly felt disgusting and primitive as much as it did artful and created by the divine. Power battled through the body's limbs until he thought his essence filling arms and legs would cause them to explode. The body--the bag of flesh composed of undignified fluids and cells--steadily grew foreign to the touch until it felt like clothes several sizes too small.

His thoughts bled into each other, English turning to fragments, and fragments turning to Enochian with perfect clarity. As if the universe plugged into his grace, he suddenly understood so many mysteries Dean's mind couldn't have comprehended. He downloaded knowledge from the far reaches of time and space, which by turn, shrank and felt entirely within his grasp. If he chose, he could shuck that body with just a thought and reach out for the next galaxy, to tickle the stars and fall head over heels in love with creation. Angels were wrong, he decided as the pain subsided. There were emotions boiling so deep and churning like the sea crashing on jagged cliffs. No, angels weren't robots devoid of feeling. He was on fire and consumed by it, leading him to rein it like a horse reeling and bucking for freedom to bolt into the wild unknown.

Love. He felt love. The fire burned from within, heating his vessel--it was truly but a vessel for conveyance among humans now--and made him see himself as a torch in the black emptiness of space. Love for creation. Love for planets, stars, mysteries made clear, for the comets and asteroids. Love for trees, flowers, insects, and everything unseen on Earth. Love for humanity. Love for Lia. Love for Castiel.

"Dean."

A burst of brilliance, of white beyond compare knocked him off his inadequate human feet. Falling to the floor bruised the body but he only felt mild regret the way a human regretted a torn seam on a shirt. He crumpled on his knees.

"Dean, it's all right." It was Castiel's voice, though no longer English. Still, Dean understood perfectly as if he'd been created speaking Enochian by telepathy.

Turning his face upward, Dean blinked. Flashing lights blurred his vision at first but he had no idea what it might have been in the dungeon. Maybe the shockwaves from their transformations had burst the fluorescent lights embedded in the ceiling. If that were the case, he'd feel glass shards dropping over the body but the only thing he felt was the constant thrum of his grace within and a lingering wind escaping the room. All right, it was like getting comfortable driving a new car. He took a deep breath. He could do it. He could learn to control the vehicle of the body.

Years ago, Dean watched a movie in which one vampire created another and that species saw the world much sharper and detailed than humans. When the new vampire awoke on his first night, his maker crooned darkly, "Now look with your vampire eyes." The world was reborn again for him. Dean thought of that movie, oddly, as he worked to gain his bearings.

Now look with your angel eyes.

Dean righted himself there on the floor and it was then that he felt massive weight shifting on his shoulders. It wasn't a foreign weight, he realized, testing it with little movements here and there. Two distinct appendages emerged from his shoulderblades, yet he knew those weren't the only new appendages either. The other sets simply lay dormant while he occupied the vessel, which gave him a hint of the size and power that presently made up his true existence--his true form. A subtle sway behind him became a swooping motion and the realization occurred to him all at once. He discovered his wings. There they were, as his vision sharpened, looming high over his shoulders and cascading in black waterfalls far beyond the floor. He never dreamed angel wings could be so big. They were his though, feeling as natural as arms and legs. He marveled.

Stronger now, Dean looked up again and found Castiel observing him in perfect stillness against the far wall. A faint luminescence hummed through the vessel and brightened his blue eyes all the more. Flickers of a more imposing body tried to emerge but Dean remembered his promise to throw his will behind seeing Castiel the way he wanted to be seen. Light caught the movement of his husband's wings and that satisfied his curiosity for the moment. He smirked in spite of himself. There must have been some of Dean still in there deep down.

"Hello, Dean," said Castiel, satisfied that he came through it.

"You look amazing," he blurted.

The confession made Castiel go stiff and questions filled his eyes.

Dean rose to his feet, slow and graceful like a feline, and patted the air with placating hands. "I didn't mean that. I still see you, not ... you. But there's a glow."

"Yes, I know of the glow. You'll recognize others of our own kind that way."

"And the wings." Smirking again, Dean tested his own again with a pronounced flapping motion that made him laugh.

"And the wings," echoed Castiel with a smile. He pushed off the wall and came close, taking Dean's hands. "Are you all right then?"

"Yeah. I think so. This ... This body feels tight and ... well ... gross. I don't like it. I wanna shimmy outta this thing." He glanced down at himself. It was the oddest sensation recognizing his body but feeling no attachment to it whatsoever. "Do I have to fight like this? Feels like I'm a grown man wearing kiddie clothes. How am I gonna maneuver this way?"

Castiel nodded knowingly and spread a hand over his chest. "Mother gave you a mighty body--your true form. You might even be bigger than me. We'll see. Regardless, you must grow accustomed to the confines of this vessel and look after it because it'll be your body again after this is over. Never ever shed your vessel in the presence of humans. Do you understand? It'll kill them to set eyes on us or hear our voices. Stay inside. Draw yourself inward and move about within until you find a tolerable position there. You'll be able to get more comfortable as you get used to these changes but no matter what--I'm serious, Dean--never let a human see your true form or hear your true voice."

"I don't even know what those things are," he protested in a lower voice.

"You will." Castiel sobered again and spoke a bit regretfully. "We both know those demons won't return Lia to us without a fight. A battle is coming and you'll soon know Hell through the eyes of your angelic existence."

Dean craved the fight if he was honest with himself and he tipped his chin and set his jaw in an unconsciously imposing stance. "Let's go then," he said. "We've got work to do."

"Indeed, we do, husband," Castiel agreed.


	16. Chapter 16

Walking with wings felt as foreign and stifling as walking with cement blocks strapped to his back. Dean craved nothing more than shedding the human body, growing into his full power, and flying by the speed of thought rather than ... walking. The human body really was a primitive thing full of sticky, disgusting fluids and organs that could fail at any time.

"Cas, I don't like this," said Dean as they climbed the bunker stairs to rejoin the family.

Glancing back around his own wings, Castiel grinned. "You look like you're walking in slime."

"I am," he groused.

"Love, listen to me." Castiel's vessel glimmered as he turned around and framed Dean's human face in his hands. "You've been a celestial being for all of ten minutes. Feeling uncomfortable is going to last a while. Some angels never grow accustomed to human vessels."

"Oh great."

"I need you to focus, Dean."

Jaw clenched in Castiel's hand, Dean shifted where he stood on the stairs. "I feel like I'm coming apart," he said in a disturbingly strained voice. "I might explode any second now. It's taking all my strength to stay inside this nasty body."

"Focus. You'll need your body again after this is over." Castiel's thumbs rubbed back and forth over Dean's cheeks. "I need you to remember why we're doing this - why you talked me into this insane plan in the first place. Breathe. Slow down your vessel's nervous system. There you go. You're in control of the vessel as much as you are the grace pumping through it."

Dean closed his eyes and swallowed. "Lia."

"Lia," echoed Castiel. "Let her be your touchstone. You were always mine."

Taking a deep breath didn't do much for Dean anymore but it helped slow down his vessel from spiraling into a panic attack. He peered into that body with detached interest. He followed Castiel upstairs again and considered all the health problems beginning to plague the body that he never felt coming. Maybe everybody was right about his diet. His angelic mind predicted a heart attack in twenty years if things didn't change in that area. If they got Lia back, he needed to live as long as he could. He needed to be the father for her that he never had.

If ... He couldn't believe he just thought that. They were going to get Lia back if they had to destroy Hell to accomplish it. Dean would rather die than never see his daughter alive again and he suspected Castiel felt the same way. In his mind, saving their child outweighed all of the dangers that came with the apocalypse or the war in Heaven of which they were all veterans. Nothing mattered but Lia and suddenly he understood what Castiel meant by using her as a touchstone. He felt himself shifting, growing, and shrinking at the same time. Becoming an angel meant being large and minuscule all at once. It meant slipping in and out of the physical world unnoticed, except when the beauty and glory of humanity was in danger. Dean and Castiel's daughter represented all of humanity in that moment of clarity and he understood the full strength of his power. It thrummed through him, ready to go off like a nuclear explosion when he found the right target.

They found upstairs deserted since everyone had gone to prepare for summoning the demon Geraldine. Part of Dean was relieved to find no one there to stare and poke and prod at his new status in the universe. Again he decided the idea that angels had no emotions was inaccurate. He felt things. Maybe it was because he'd never been taught the emotional experience was wrong. What Castiel didn't warn him about was the way his brain functioned through a myriad of ideas and universal truths simultaneously. If he could harness control over the breadth and noise of his thoughts, he'd feel better.

"Oh, it's angel radio," he blurted suddenly.

"What?" Castiel asked as he shuffled demon lore books on one of the library tables.

"Thought I was thinking weird. You know. Like layers."

A faint smile and a low nod bobbed over one book Castiel selected over the stack. "You can shut it down if you prefer."

"How?"

"Just will it so."

That baffled Dean for a moment but something deeper inside tugged at his sense of recognition. He strolled across the library floor, thinking it over, and a dragging sensation behind him knocked a box of files on the floor. Turning, he realized his new width from having wings pushed over a small table as he passed.

"Shit."

Dean stooped to pick everything up but Castiel appeared at his side before he reached the floor.

"Wait. You must begin using your grace. It's important if you mean to fight demons." Castiel gestured to the mess. "I'd like to see you put this table back in order with your angelic power. It's not physical. You have the celestial privilege of being able to manipulate matter, atoms, the stuff of life. Reach into these objects and move them with your grace. You can do it." And he took a step back to prove his trust in Dean's new abilities.

It was a faith that he didn't share. The strangest sense of knowing simmered just beneath the surface but he was still so fresh out of a human life than doubt plagued him. Doubt seemed as sticky and unpleasant as the organs giving life to his vessel though. That needed to stop or he'd hesitate when it mattered.

Dean closed his eyes and saw through the blank space all the matter and atoms Castiel described. He huffed a hard breath to ready himself, absently thinking that was one of Sam's habits, and set to work on harnessing his grace. The file box scooted on the floor but it wasn't enough. He was getting the hang of it though. With another hard breath, he thrust out his hands and lifted the table and all of its contents in one swooping motion without physically touching a thing. Opening his eyes again, he saw that he'd done it. He'd harnessed his grace. And it felt as natural as breathing. Now, he thought, doing anything by physical means seemed slow and tedious.

Observing quietly, Castiel displayed pride in only the slightest smile. They were not to be lovers in those tense moments. He was a commander training a soldier. That was okay with Dean, he decided, because being lovers complicated his ability to adapt. They needed clear minds for their child.

"Now pull your angel blade from Heaven," he instructed.

"How?"

Castiel flung his wrist just slightly and the angel blade dropped into the palm of his hand like Dean had seen a thousand times before. He never questioned where the blade came from but another tugging at his attention directed him to his own blade.

"Oh."

His grace reached out toward Heaven and almost acted like a lasso to bring it down into his hand. He flipped his shining new blade with a bit of a flourish for an angel that should have been quiet, cat-like, and modest at all times. So the old Dean still existed in a way. That time he flashed Castiel a bit of an egotistical smile as he flipped the blade end over end. An etching on the handle caught the light and he straightened, peering down at it curiously. Enochian characters appeared there as clearly to his eyes as English.

"Dominiel?" he read aloud.

Castiel smiled and peered down at the handle cradled in Dean's hand. "It's your name in Enochian. Look here." He displayed the handle of his own blade. "There's my name too. It's a little more battered and scratched but I suspect you'll have an opportunity to test your weapon soon."

Sighing with more reverence than Dean expected, he ran the pad of his thumb over his Enochian name. Power vibrated within the word. "This is gonna work. We're gonna get our girl back."

"I know we will," Castiel affirmed.

The moment was broken before anyone hit the bunker door. Dean listened in fascination, able to hear Sam talking with Amina and Krissy outside as they climbed out of the car. He turned toward the door up the curving staircase long before they appeared there. And before he saw his human family, their souls glimmered and shined ahead of them. It staggered Dean to finally witness the blinding white beauty of the human soul - not one but three of them.

"Hey, we're back!" Krissy called out.

"I took the kids to Linda Anton," added Amina. "You remember her from church. She was thrilled to keep the boys for a few days. I don't think the demons will know to look for my kids there if things get hairy."

Sam stared at Dean, unblinking.

Dean stared back.

They sized each other up while Amina and Krissy got to work gathering ingredients for the spell to summon the demon Geraldine. While the women deliberately avoided looking too hard at Dean, knowing what he'd done, Sam took measure of his brother inch by inch and Dean let him do it. He had to get it out of his system. He might never be comfortable with the new state of things but it had to be done. Born human brothers, they were now members of two different species - one immortal and one mortal subject to all of the fears and insecurity that went with human frailty.

"You don't look any different," said Sam quietly.

"You do," Dean replied just as quietly.

Sam inclined his head with an unspoken question.

Maybe it wasn't a good idea to be so blunt and Castiel laid a hand on his arm in the silent communication to tread lightly but Dean said it anyway. "I can see your soul." Secrets between brothers had to stop and it took immortality and grace to put it into perspective. "I'll try to stay out of your brain though. I have no interest in listening to those sappy love songs you think I don't know you hum to yourself."

Something about that tickled Amina. She giggled, which broke the tension in the room. Krissy giggled a little hesitantly until Sam finally quit looking so constipated with anxiety and allowed himself a laugh too.

"We've got work to do," Dean said in a more relaxed gone - as relaxed as he could be under the circumstances.

Only Krissy needed a bit of direction in where to find the remaining ingredients for the summoning spell. The rest of the family moved like a military unit, much accustomed to the silent twilight before going into battle. No one felt much need to speak or even try making pleasant conversation. Too much had changed. Dean was still Dean inside but he knew they were all looking at him here and there like peeking at an exotic animal kept in a cage. He wasn't human anymore. As much as he had to get used to grace pumping through his body and the weight of enormous black wings protruding from his shoulders, they had to get used to him crossing that line between "us" and "them". In their eyes, he was on a different team.

Once Sam checked off all of the spell ingredients off a list and Amina changed into jeans and a t-shirt fit for moving in a fight, the truth of things settled into Dean's mind. Lia wasn't their baby. She sure as hell wasn't Gadreel's baby either. Yet all of them showed up when they were called to help bring her home. It moved him, yet covering over his emotion with a smooth veneer came so much easier as an angel. The ability to maintain focus on the mission got easier with each passing minute.

"We're going to the warehouse we've used before for these purposes, aren't we?" Castiel asked the room.

Sam nodded. "Yep."

"All right." His blue eyes slid over to Dean, looking so much more brilliant since his metamorphosis as if he could see Castiel's grace living and breathing in his vessel. "Then Dean is going to lead us to the warehouse as a group. I'll assist."

Dean blinked. "Say what?"

"You must learn flying and transporting humans before you're tested under battle conditions."

"I can't."

"You must," insisted Castiel. "Stop thinking of yourself in the scope of a fragile human and start believing in your grace. You absorbed heavenly power because you love our child so fiercely. Hell will tremble with fear once they've realized what they've done. Winchesters are fearsome enough as men. They're the stuff of legend as angels."

Silence filled the room until Sam shifted on his feet and cleared his throat. "Cas is right," he offered. "We've kicked ass together before but now you have grace, which is a weapon the demons won't expect in a million years. You can't hesitate to use it. For Lia's sake, Dean. Look, I wasn't in favor of this. I'm still not. It scares the shit out of me to think you're changed forever by what you've done today even when you fall to humanity again. But I'm not stupid. You and Cas are the best weapons we've got against Hell. Gadreel too. Plug yourself into it. Become Dean the angel. Don't hesitate anymore. I'm your brother and I'm gonna be here to yank you back to humanity when it's over."

"So will I," promised Amina with a sharp nod.

Krissy stepped in closer. "Me too."

"You won't lose yourself to the grace," added Castiel. "We won't allow that to happen."

As Dean looked around the bunker library and at the faces surrounding him, he hadn't realized just how transparent he'd been the whole time. He really was afraid of losing himself to the power in his vessel, which was something Sam and Krissy could never understand. Knowing so many mysteries in the universe that perplexed him before, knowing he was actually taller than a skyscraper, knowing he could rip a fragile human body to shreds with just a touch - all of it attracted him like a siren's song. If he surrendered to it, his family promised to pull him back when it was done. He wondered if they really could though.

Lia. The touchstone entered his mind. Soft pink cheeks. Bright, curious eyes. A tiny rosebud of a smile just beginning to show her first tiny white teeth.

There truly wasn't any choice but to trust in the love and goodness of his cause.

"Dominiel," he told the room. "It's my heavenly name."

The room went still.

"Do you ... do you want us to call you that now?" Sam probed.

"No." There was the sliding feeling. Dean moved further away from the lingering remains of his human soul and immersed deeper into his grace. It felt natural, unlike the way they perceived his changing speech patterns. "You may still call me Dean. However, you must remember my heavenly name should you need to pray to me or summon me. We may become separated in all of this maneuvering toward the Gates of Hell."

Instinct taught him what to do and say but he saw the stillness and hesitation as his human family watched him surrender to the grace. They nodded. They obeyed. But Dean heard their fearful thoughts that he might never come back from angelic power. Only Castiel, calm and resolute, knew the power Lia had as their touchstone. She would keep their human hearts open until they found her safe and alive.

"You take Krissy and Mina," he told his husband, "and I'll take Sammy on my own."

Castiel nodded as he moved between the women, who each held a plastic bin of supplies they'd need for spell casting. "Pinpoint the warehouse in your internal radar. Let it pull you there like a cord. Don't let go of your brother. It'll only take a second but we've dropped humans before. Exercise caution."

"Enough talk. It's time for action."

With a roll of his shoulders, Dean paid careful attention to the way his wings moved and stretched in preparation to fly. Castiel watched as if he wanted to touch his wings but neither of them let on about it. No one else in the room could see the silent exchange or the hulking black appendages stretching and ready. But they weren't foreign appendages, really. They were elements of Dean's body and motion came as easily as moving his arm or his leg. In fact those wings moved with far more grace and natural sensation than muscles of the human vessel.

"Don't drop me," murmured Sam with a faint attempt at humor.

"I've got you, brother," Dean vowed.

One hard swoop and Dean finally witnessed the expanse of his own wings in flight. Of course it only lasted for a second in human perception but angels experienced every nanosecond of flight. Each feather tingled and shimmered in the sunlight high over the Kansas countryside. Holding onto Sam was much easier than he anticipated as if the human body was as insignificant as carrying a club sandwich from the kitchen to the living room.

In a way, Dean was glad Sam had no awareness of their flight until their feet touched down on the second floor of the warehouse. He wanted that moment to test out his ability to fly without human eyes questioning and fearing everything he did. The strength and agility he'd acquired improved his confidence in himself and he was grateful Castiel pushed him into trying it. Now he knew he could do that and so much more under battle conditions as long as he trusted his instincts. Dean had always been one to go with his gut before. Now his new species depended on action by instinct, something that never fully translated within the limitations of the human mind.

The landing was harder than he expected. While he dropped effortlessly, Sam hit with enough force to make his knees buckle. So he wasn't quite a practiced angel yet. It was his first day. Dean squeezed his brother's shoulder and nodded as if asking if he was all right. The younger Winchester nodded back but his eyes still betrayed an uncertainty like the older Winchester had turned purple or grew a unicorn horn out of his forehead.

Castiel swooped in with the women at a much easier speed in the next moment. He tucked his wings neatly behind his body, which Dean tried to mimic, but he found himself frustrated again by the smallness of a human body. Catching his eye, Castiel opened his wings and silently demonstrated the folding method again while Amina and Krissy conferred with Sam about setting up the summoning spell. It occurred to Dean that he and his angel husband were communicating less and less by verbal means and more and more by bodily motion, facial expression, and - he finally understood it - empathy. He had the ability to absorb information Castiel passed into him and vice versa, yet precious little of it came by English words. It was all sensation.

He'd have to remember humans needed verbal communication. He couldn't just go silent toward his brother.

"You got the demon blade, Sammy?" He asked the question in a purposeful tone, trying to sound more like human Dean and not angel Dominiel.

"Yep, I got it," Sam replied easily.

So that was the trick. Vocal inflection meant a lot to human ears.

Castiel grinned just a little but said nothing.

"I figure this is gonna be your show, guys," Amina said to Dean and Castiel. "Krissy and I will hang low and give you backup if you need it but for now I think talking to this Geraldine thing has to be on you two. They've got your child. They think you have the Holy Family's artifacts. Let them think they'll get what they want for a little while and see if you can't get some information out of them."

"I agree," Dean said.

Castiel crouched to help Sam set up the spell ingredients on the warehouse floor. "You're an excellent strategist for a librarian."

"Oh hush up, big brother. I was an archivist, which is highly specialized."

"Archivists require three hundred years of training, followed by two hundred years of the human equivalent of internship. Only then are they allowed to handle sensitive materials in Heaven's libraries. Amina exhibited higher than average intelligence and aptitude for being trained and training others. She was created for those kinds of positions, which is why she excels as an emergency room nurse now in her human life," Dean explained in a low, even tone, although he hadn't any real idea of how the information came to him. He just knew.

A slow grin tugged at one corner of her mouth. "I see you've tapped into histories of our kind."

"I suppose so," he admitted. Mind shifting quicker than before, Dean moved on to the next task without notice. "Cas, you summon the demon. I'm going outside so they don't know it's me right away. Spell out our terms. When the demon Geraldine gives you trouble, which she will, I'll let her know the game has changed."

"You're gonna make an entrance," Sam guessed.

Dean gave a shallow nod. "Hell should fear us."

Before they could delay him with more questions, Dean pumped a hard swoop of his new wings and disappeared from the warehouse. He didn't go far. Only a mile away. Demons had no ability to detect other celestial creatures outside of a mile's radius and were, in fact, quite weak. No longer could Dean fathom why they'd lived in fear of such loathsome creatures for so long. As he looked at his upturned hand, the urge to smite flowed white-blue grace so bright just beneath the surface of his vessel's skin. Soon. He'd exercise his divine right soon.

Dean stuck his hands in his jeans pockets and leaned against a lamp post. He trained his heightened hearing on the warehouse and listened as Castiel chanted the appropriate Enochian spell. Even from that distance, he felt Sam's unease but there was a strong undercurrent of faith flowing beneath that trepidation. It had to be a lot for his brother to adapt to his change in species but the faith he kept locked in his chest inspired Dean. He had no idea Sam held so much faith in him. It'd been there since they were kids too. Even through each time Dean screwed up - and human frailty made him do that a lot - Sam had always known they were meant to do good in the world and keep innocent people safe.

The oppressive stench of sulfur hit Dean all at once. He stiffened, knowing the demon called Geraldine had arrived up in that warehouse a mile away. Every muscle in his vessel trembled with the urge to obliterate every demon he encountered. It seemed intrinsic to his species.

"I'm late for a manicure," huffed Geraldine but Dean sensed her anxiety between the words. Seeing Castiel turn angel again threw her. "Hand over the artifacts already so we can butt out of each other's pathetic lives."

"How do we know Lia hasn't already been killed?" Sam demanded.

"Proof of life. Now." The determination in Amina's voice kept it steady.

Geraldine sighed, exhaling another disgusting cloud of sulfur that Dean smelled from a mile away. "The little princess brat is entertaining Queen Abaddon in her palace as we speak. She has a heart-shaped birthmark on the back of her thigh and a fairly serious lung infection. Don't you ever take your brat to the doctor?" She made a disgusted sound. "Babies should be drowned at birth. I don't know why this is even a sticking point for you sentimental humans."

"Is that right?" Sam asked Castiel in a low, clipped voice.

"Yes," Castiel confirmed.

And Dean sensed it too. The creature wasn't lying. But she also didn't realize she'd given away the baby's location in all of her egotistical showboating and bravado.

"Touching," she muttered at Castiel's surge of emotion. "Now hurry up. I've got stuff to do. Give me the artifacts before I get pissed off."

The faint metallic sound of a blade came to Dean's ears.

"Sorry, sweetheart. You and your black-eyed peas aren't getting a thing from the Holy Family." It was Krissy. Krissy had the blade to make her point clearer and she spoke with the kind of courage that couldn't be faked. "Abaddon must be stupid to think we'll just hand over the power of the Holy Family and let her use it to usher in a new period of human destruction." She was stalling and she was doing a good job of it. "I mean, do you guys really think you're that scary? You can't do jack shit without stolen power from other places."

Although Krissy started to laugh, deliberately provoking Geraldine, her voice got cut off as her torso slammed hard into a wall. Dean heard the crunch of feminine rib bones. His fists balled at his sides.

"Geraldine, stop!" growled Castiel from deep in his grace.

Dean listened to shuffling and Amina's voice on the other side of the warehouse floor. "It's okay, sweetie. Slow breaths. You got hit hard."

More shuffling. Sam got slammed and then he hurled himself at the demon, which Dean felt more than he heard. That was enough for him.

Just as Sam and Castiel wrestled Geraldine into a devil's trap, Dean made his entrance. He burst through the enormous warehouse window and flew across the room. Somehow his pent-up rage taught him how to let his grace burst through his eyes, shining bright white-blue lights in the most menacing expression. That anger stretched tendrils of power through the ceiling and walls of the warehouse up to the sky where he easily controlled the weather with just a thought.

Lightning flashed, thunder exploded, and all of the glass windows ripped open and tossed shards everywhere. At the center of the storm, Dean strode toward Geraldine with carefully measured steps. Though Castiel knew what Dean was doing - the display of Heaven's power - Sam, Krissy, and Amina all turned and looked him over just as he rolled his shoulders, opening his wings. Their breadth stretched across the warehouse in shadows caught in alternating patterns of lightning. If he could, he would have shed his vessel right there and let that minescule flea strapped to a chair in the devil's trap know just who had the power there.

"Holy shit," breathed Sam.

"Oh my God!" Krissy cried, tearing her eyes away from Dean's terrifying display. She buried her face in Amina's neck and clung to her body like a child reaching for her mother after a nightmare.

"Take your ass back to Hell and give Abaddon our terms, you miserable bag of sulfur," hissed Dean in a mixture of his vessel's voice and his angelic voice. He had to keep control over his rage or he'd inadvertently kill his brother and the women. "You tell your queen what you've seen here. You tell her Dean Winchester is an angel now. If she doesn't return my child in one piece, not only will she have my wrath but a legion of other angels behind me. Hell's kingdom will be reduced to smoldering ashes when I'm done down there. If you don't believe me, ask your superiors what I did during my queen's war for independence. And I was just a human back then."

No one dared to try and stop Dean after witnessing just how much power the Goddess Mary had infused into his grace. Along with Castiel, it was evident that Dean was her favorite in all of her legions. He knew he'd frightened Sam into silence but Amina and Castiel flanked him, ready and willing to aid him in anything he needed. For Sam's part, he guarded Krissy and assured her as much as himself that everything would be all right.

Dean planted his hands on Geraldine's chair, forcing the creature to look at him. "I've got celestial power now. Your queen fucked with the Righteous Man and Heaven's royal family. She's gonna get burned. Go and tell her our terms and I won't hunt you down and smite you for sport. You read me, sulfur breath?"

"I read you, wings," she hissed. With one blink, her eyes turned black and she spat in Dean's face.

He growled low from his grace as he'd heard Castiel do. "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica...."

"No!" screeched Geraldine. She began to writhe.

Immediately, Sam's voice joined Dean's and he knew they were still on the same team. "Ergo, omnis legio diabolica, adjuramus te cessa decipere humanas creaturas, eisque æternæ perditionìs venenum propinare."

"Goddamn you!" Geraldine's screaming shook the walls.

"Vade, satana, inventor et magister omnis fallaciæ, hostis humanæ salutis. Humiliare sub potenti manu Dei; contremisce et effuge, invocato a nobis sancto et terribili nomine...." Castiel, Krissy, and Amina joined in, making the family's voices rise higher over the creature's horrid last throes of existing in that vessel. "...quem inferi tremunt. Ab insidiis diaboli, libera nos, Domine! Ut Ecclesiam tuam secura tibi facias libertate servire, te rogamus, audi nos!"

Black smoke erupted from Geraldine's vessel in a horrendous elongated scream. Her dark essence swirled and wound around the warehouse ceiling until sliding through the nearest air vent.

The second Dean let go of his rage, so too did he let go of the display of power. Lightning cooled, thunder calmed, and the raging winds whipping through the broken warehouse windows went still. The body that had housed Geraldine wasn't dead after all. Hatred replaced the storming anger in Dean's grace as it dawned on him that the demon had taken a live victim against her will.

Groaning, her head rolled from one side to the other. She looked no different than any other human woman once Geraldine was exorcised. Tears rolled down her cheeks but it didn't appear that she even recognized her emotional reaction to being set free.

Amina rushed behind the lady and untied her wrists. She cried out in pain when Dean knelt to free her ankles from the ropes and he immediately saw the damage inside. Geraldine had shattered her ankles somehow.

"You're going to be all right," Dean said in a gentle tone.

Still, the woman cried. "Where am I?"

"You were kidnapped," he replied. "It's all right now. We're going to help you. Tell me your name. Mina?" He glanced at his sister-in-law and motioned for her to look at the damage. "Okay, darlin', tell me your name. I'm Dean and I'm going to make your ankles feel better."

Through her tears, the woman managed to speak. "Nessie."

"Nessie? Like the Loch Ness Monster? That's pretty cool," offered Sam as he came to the poor woman's side and held her other hand.

Behind Dean, Castiel crouched close enough to feel the heat radiating from his grace and to hear the faint whispering in his ear. "What you'll need to do is visualize her bones. Look through the surface. Do you see the splintering? There are torn soft tissues all the way up to her knee as well."

"Something's bleeding over here," Dean whispered back, "awfully close to the artery here."

"Exactly. Well done," murmured Castiel. He took Dean's hand and guided him in pointing the two healing fingers every angel possessed. "Feel the cells in need of repair. Feed your grace into their makeup and repair the damage from the inside outward. Make it quick. Don't expend too much of your power into any one human body or there could be consequences. Ready?"

"Yes."

It seemed Nessie was in too much pain or too distracted by Sam and Amina talking to her to notice the short angelic conference on the floor. With Castiel's hand lightly holding his, Dean touched one of her ankles under two healing fingers. A surge of white heat shimmied through his grace and slid effortlessly into her body. The bones mended and the torn soft tissues melted back together the way they were supposed to be again.

In just a few hours, Dean experienced both the destructive and healing powers inherent to angelkind.

"I'll go heal Krissy now," said Castiel as he got up.

"What's happening?" demanded Nessie.

"Commander."

All of them turned to see Gadreel standing in the far corner with two others, all still wearing the old Roman uniforms. He began to speak but upon seeing the unknown human woman, he amended his direct nature.

"Commander Castiel. Commander Dominiel," he said. "Sirs, there's just been a disturbance in enemy territory. Intelligence shows widespread movement as if new orders have been delivered. There are fires springing up near the Gates but no one seems to know the origin. However, the fires look controlled and purposeful."

Castiel nodded. "We need to confer and regroup."

Eyes growing wider by the second, Nessie seemed to realize she hadn't fallen into a clump of normal people. "Who the hell are all of you?"


	17. Chapter 17

Fear. Dean was surprised to learn that fear was an emotion still very much in tact even in his new state of being - his new species. He stood alone in the room he shared with Castiel and their child terrified to his core that he'd forget how to love baby Lia if he held onto his celestial grace for too long. The voices banging against his ears all the way from downstairs made the fear bubble up in him again and again just when he managed to calm his erratic mind. Maybe it was the grace trying to overtake his being. Maybe he was going through the sensations of an internal war. Humanity fighting to survive against the divine.

No wonder Castiel stayed so quiet all the time when he was an angel. Sometimes moving too much or speaking more than necessary overwhelmed the senses.

Dean approached the portable crib, a remnant from Lia's time in the bunker when the family still used it as a base for hunting trips. He plucked the brown teddy bear with a red ribbon tied around its neck from the bottom of the crib and brought it to his nose. He searched for any lingering trace of his child. Yes, there. Lia's sweet, clean baby scent still clung to the stuffed toy and he inhaled deeply, grateful for the paternal love swelling in his chest.

His little girl wouldn't recognize him now. Maybe she would take one look at the hulking wings erupting from his shoulderblades and wail in fear. Somehow he knew babies could see the true nature of an angel. It still sounded so bizarre in his own mind to call himself an angel, yet the tight confines of his human body and the claustrophobic quality of any closed room on earth confirmed exactly what he was and what he'd done to save his child. Soon he would storm the Gates of Hell for her. Holding onto his human love for Lia was an absolute necessity if he was going to succeed at breaching Hell's defenses. The possibility that she was already dead tried to intrude on his logic but he batted it away with another breath of her sweet baby smell on the teddy bear.

Silently, Castiel slipped into the room. Dean had to force himself to view his husband through the filter of his vessel because he'd promised not to look at his true form. He didn't even know what he looked like yet either. There weren't many mirrors in the bunker but he managed to avoid all of them, fearful of how a new species changed him.

"Sam has returned," said Castiel in a blessedly quiet voice. "He said Nessie took the memory wipe better than most humans do. She'll be fine. We should begin formulating a plan of attack."

Dean nodded.

"You handled yourself admirably today."

"I have no clue what the hell I'm doing. I'm just groping around in the dark trying to find some shred of myself left in all this...." As he spoke, Dean lifted his arms and his elbows bumped into a feathery mass hanging behind him. "It still shocks the hell out of me when I bump into these damn things. I doubt I'll ever get used to being a creature with wings."

"You're beautiful," Castiel whispered. "If you could see yourself the way I do, you'd know."

Brows furrowed, Dean cut his eyes at the angel - the other angel - who gazed back at him the same way he did when he saw his first snowfall. They were wrong. They were all wrong. Angels weren't void of emotion at all. They felt things so deeply, magnified in whatever power fueled their graces, and it forced them to control those feelings before they were possessed by them. No matter how Dean's speech patterns changed, no matter how he understood the mysteries of the universe, no matter where those wings took him in the coming days, he'd never lose sight of his love for Castiel, for Lia, and for the whole of his family.

"Dean, sit with me for a minute."

"C'mon, Cas, we gotta--"

"--Just for a minute. Please."

Hesitation stilled Dean for a moment but he found it impossible to reject the light in Castiel's blue eyes. Had they always been so blue? He put Lia's teddy bear in the crib again, leaving it for her when she came home to her rightful family again. The two of them sat side by side on the bed that used to be theirs when they were still trying to feel out what they meant to each other.

"You're refusing to look at yourself. Don't think I haven't noticed. No, no, don't try to explain yourself. I understand the shock you must be going through. It's not unlike when I became human."

Dean evaded his eyes. "We don't have time to do this right now."

Snatching his chin in a tight grip, Castiel forced Dean to meet his eyes and hear his words. "An angel who doubts his vessel is weak in battle. An angel who can't process his own strength is dangerous to his fellow soldiers."

"What are you getting at?"

"Breathe."

"What?"

"Take a deep breath, Dean."

"Breathing isn't necessary for our survival," he retorted with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"Dean...." murmured Castiel, using his name like a spell to keep drawing him back into the moment.

"I don't know what you want from me."

"Breathe," Castiel said again. "Allow yourself to be immersed in your body. Your inner body, not this vessel. As long as you’re busy analyzing it and fighting what you are now, you're putting yourself in danger - Lia and me too. So I need you to sit here and breathe for a minute before we join the others and begin fighting the Queen of Hell."

Dean huffed impatiently but he knew Castiel wasn't going to let him wriggle his way out of it. "Fine."

"Good," said Castiel. "Close your eyes. Breathe deep. Shut out all of the outside noise. You can do that better than any creature in the universe because you are an angel. You have the power to envelop yourself in silence. Focus on my voice."

It was ridiculous but Dean obeyed if only to please his husband. Angels or humans, they were still married. Nothing changed that. So he did as Castiel asked, allowing his eyes to slip shut and deep measures of oxygen to fill his human vessel. Sure, the vessel felt better when he did that but he felt nothing different at all. He listened to Castiel's instructions on how to shut out the noise around him, which easily stretched through every human conversation, every insect, every car, and every breath of wind for miles if he didn't learn to control that particular power. All right, he conceded as the world went quieter, it was a worthy lesson.

Tight muscles went slack in his vessel as the noise reduced to a manageable hum. He hadn't realized how much stress the human body endured when occupied by an angel. Even so, he still longed to shed his human skin and expand to his rightful size and strength the way his instincts demanded. Only the guarantee of killing his family with his light and his voice stopped him.

The air shifted as Castiel's arm reached behind Dean and took the drooping length of his new wing over his elbow. Feeling someone touch his wing instantly made Dean jump and his eyes snapped open with the shock of realizing wings were as personal and private to an angel as certain places on the body were to a human. Of course, Castiel knew what he was doing and he held Dean's gaze without the slightest hint of doubt. He moved slowly, allowing Dean time to acclimate to being touched in a way that he'd never before experienced. Letting it happen was unusual. He knew that somehow. Angels never touched each other's wings unless they had to under life and death circumstances, yet there Castiel sat with Dean's new wing draped over the crook of his arm.

"Look at yourself, Dean," he whispered, bringing the wing around him like a floor-length cloak. "You really need to understand your new body."

Dean couldn't make himself look directly at the feathered appendage even if he felt it as clearly as he felt an arm or a leg. He jumped, startled once more as Castiel's free hand slid down the black feathers. Every feather was filled with nerve endings apparently. The sensation of warm touch rippled through him until gooseflesh rose on his arms and legs. From the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of luminosity that hinted at inner light flowing through each feather just as much as the ability to feel physical touch. No wonder angels refused to touch each other's wings. It was too much.

Tilting forward, Castiel pressed a sacred kiss into the midsection of the wing. It jolted through Dean's grace, the sensation of a kiss, and shoved the breath out from his human vessel. Not only was the loving gesture physical but the force of Castiel's devotion flowed through one grace into another, leaving no doubt of their bond. A flash of iridescent light flickered over the surface of each feather. It drew Dean's attention to it in spite of himself.

"That's your light. Look at it, love. It's you," Castiel encouraged in a gentle voice.

"How are you doing that?" he questioned hoarsely.

A faint smile opened Castiel's expression while he lazily stroked the wing. "Now you understand why angels trick ourselves into thinking we don't feel. We do. We feel more than humans, I think. Now ask yourself a simple question. As an angel now with wings and grace and a halo--"

"--Halo? Really?--"

"--Yes, really. Now ask yourself, the angel Dominiel - do you love Lia?"

Dean's mind slipped back eight months to the day a tiny little life was brought into the world by a mother who loved her enough to realize she couldn't give her the life she deserved. That mother offered her newborn baby, a pink wriggling thing with large, intelligent eyes, to a pair of men with a house, a yard, and a life ready to welcome a family. He felt her slight weight in his arms that day of her birth. She had been small enough to fit in the crook of his elbow with room to spare. Sleepy eyes peered up at him as if she knew. She trusted. That big hairy man with green eyes and too many freckles who was terrified of strapping in the car seat wrong was her daddy.

Light shimmered over the surface of his wings once again as if the emotion for his child was too vast to be contained in a single angelic grace or even a single human soul. "Yeah," he said, eyes welling. "Yeah, I love her."

"And do you love me?" Castiel pressed.

The question hit Dean like a blow to the chest as if the possibility of not loving Castiel sucked the life out of him. "Do you have to ask?" he shot back barely above a whisper.

"Not for me. For you."

"So much I can't breathe if I try to put it in words." It wasn't a normal response for Dean and he listened to himself say it with partially detached interest. Maybe Dean would feel weird about it but Dominiel decided it was the most appropriate way to answer such a question. The angel he was had the courage to say things the human thought lacked any sort of masculinity. Truth was truth no matter how he dressed it up as Dominiel or dressed it down as Dean.

A slightly more defined smile brightened Castiel's face for the briefest moment before he reached over and kissed Dean with hands framing his face. He gave into it easily, clutching the sleeves of Castiel's shirt like a life preserver. They had been so focused on finding their child that they'd nearly set aside the family they were fighting to preserve.

When they parted, Dean realized his wing lay between them across his lap. It was a heavy thing, he discovered, as Castiel amused himself by softly combing his fingers through the luxurious black feathers. Allowing himself a bit of guidance, Dean rested his fingers lightly on top of Castiel's hand and followed its stroking path. Errant feathers brushed his fingertips until he worked up the courage to touch the strange bodily addition without a safety barrier. Calloused and battered, his hand felt so much rougher against his feathers, and then, there, yes, he realized it was dual sensations like touching finger to finger. As he felt the feathers, so too did his feathers feel each cut and scrape marring his hand.

"It really is me," he said in a burst of relief.

"Yes, you are in full possession of your wings like any other part of your body," agreed Castiel. "They're as tangible as the way it feels when I kiss you. Do you understand me?"

Dean nodded, thinking. "Yeah, I think I do."

The wings that frightened him so much spread a great length to the floor and beyond. Dean narrowed his eyes and curled the end of the wing upward, watching it rise, and he observed the way the light played on his iridescent feathers. Blacker than night and lighter than day all at the same time, they obeyed his brain's impulses as easily as raising or lowering an arm. Of course, he knew that already, having flown with Sam to the abandoned warehouse for the summoning ritual, yet he hadn't allowed himself to watch the hulking things do their work. Castiel forcing the issue seemed ridiculous at first but he understood it there in the privacy of their old room. It was necessary to accept his new condition in order to trust himself with responsibilities greater than his own survival. He could never hope to rescue Lia if he couldn't trust his new body to behave to its fullest potential.

“Should we become separated in the fighting – I don’t know what will happen – but if we are pulled apart, you can use the sensory memory of my touch to latch onto my position,” Castiel explained. “Latching onto the location of any being is done in a variety of ways, but for us, I think it has to be the intimacy of touch.”

“That’s why you made me do all this with my wing,” surmised Dean.

“Partially, yes. I wanted you to understand your body too. You still see yourself as Dean Winchester but if you’re going to stand a chance against Abaddon, you’ve got to see your full potential as Dominiel. You’ve got to recognize your power as a wavelength of celestial intent, not a man walking around in a fragile human body. Dominiel has enough power with one thought to cause an explosion of nuclear proportions. That’s the kind of celestial weaponry at your disposal and you need to own it. Don’t shy away from it. Hesitation at the wrong moment will ruin Lia’s chances for survival. It’s time to let go of your fear.”

Nodding slowly, Dean let himself consider the level of destruction he could cause if the demons working under Abaddon’s control required a lesson. Castiel was right. He had to quit shying away from his angelic body if he was going to give his daughter a fighting chance.

“I can do it,” Dean promised aloud.

“Do you know how to smite?” asked Castiel.

“Well, I’ve seen you do it a few times. You put your hand on the demon’s forehead and you sort of juice up until the thing explodes in a ball of light.”

“Yes, that’s the gist of it. Call up your celestial right from the deepest part of your grace to destroy the evil in the universe. Once you’re close enough to a demon, you’ll feel your instincts pulling you toward smiting because it’s your right. Everything has a balance in the universe. Light and dark. Pleasure and suffering. Goodness and evil. An angel has the instinctual function of maintaining light, pleasure, and goodness in the universe. This was our original purpose. I need you to forget the corruption you witnessed among our kind before Mother Mary won her rightful throne. Listen inside of your grace for your true purpose. It will lead you in the right direction toward Lia and away from hellish creatures.”

“If I can find you by drawing up the sensory memory of touch, then is it possible to find Lia through another sensory memory?”

That intrigued Castiel. His head tilted. “Such as?”

“I remember her scent the most. The baby powder and … you know … her.”

*****

In the bunker’s common room leading to the library, Sam stared up the curving staircase and strained his ears for any sign of movement. He couldn’t fathom what was taking them so long to join the family, Krissy, Gadreel, and the other angelic soldiers for a final strategy session. The more time they wasted, the less likely they were going to find Lia alive. His muscles strained to remain still even though he wanted nothing more than to rush into their room and yell at them for wasting time.

Amina’s familiar presence slid into Sam’s empty arm. He drew her close and glanced down at her glittery blue eyes. “You ought to eat something,” she murmured up at him. “We don’t know what we’re walking into and you haven’t had a bite all day.”

“We won’t be walking into anything if they don’t get a move on,” Sam replied, jerking his chin toward the residence wing upstairs. “The hell are they doing?”

“I don’t know,” Amina replied, looping her arms around his waist. “My guess is Dean’s having trouble adjusting to who he is now.”

“You mean what he is.”

“Sam.”

Sighing, he raked a hand through the length of his dark hair. “Sorry.”

“It’s not only an adjustment for him. I know.” Standing high on her tiptoes, Amina kissed Sam’s cheek and gave him a squeeze. “Try to remember this won’t last forever. Once we have Lia back, they’ll remove their graces again and resume normal human lives. Perfectly ordinary suburban mortality. You and I went through this too.”

“Mm,” Sam mused with more than a little skepticism. “I remember how hard it was for you to give up your immortality. We almost split up over it.”

“But we didn’t. We have our boys and I’d do it all over again,” she replied.

Sam peered down at her from his lofty height. He skimmed a large hand along her cheek, consumed by unexpected emotion. “You don’t have to say that,” he offered. “No one would go through so many miscarriages if they had to live it all over again.”

“I would,” she argued with a haughty tip of her chin.

“You can’t be serious.”

“I’m perfectly serious, Samuel Winchester. I’d go through every moment of it again if I had to because we have two beautiful sons together and you taught me how beautiful the little simplicities are in human life.” She splayed her small hand over his back, looking at him with all of the fierce determination her grace never took away. “The babies we lost trying to have our boys are still out there. I know we’re going to see them again in Heaven.”

“You’re pretty sure about the soulmate rule,” he teased, the corner of his mouth pulling up.

“I am. You’re stuck with me for eternity.” Amina’s face bloomed into a radiant smile.

“Let’s try to get Lia back home before we think about eternity,” Sam suggested, although he tapped her nose lovingly with his fingertip.

Amina shrugged. “Have some faith. We have the best resources Mother Mary has to offer on our side. I can’t imagine a way for this to play out without bringing that sweet little baby home where she belongs. And I’m perfectly content to hear about Cas and Dean laying waste to Hell after they make it home safely.”

“Are you okay with not fighting?”

“No,” she admitted without hesitation, “but I don’t have a choice. My body isn’t healed enough from childbirth to fight with you. I’ll console myself with nursing wounds afterward.”

Sam opened his mouth, a witty comeback locked and loaded, but movement on the bunker’s surveillance system caught his attention. A dark figure loitered outside. He squinted over Amina’s head at the grainy black and white screen mounted on the far wall. Finally, the intruder turned to one side, giving Sam a look at his profile. Shock, then rage, and then mild curiosity swept through his emotional system when he recognized Crowley standing out there, unable to enter because of the anti-demon warding throughout the bunker.

“Stay here,” he muttered to Amina as he stalked away.

“What?”

“I’ll be right back,” Sam called over his shoulder.

For some reason, Crowley didn’t use the front entrance the way the Winchester family did. No, the asshole made Sam traipse through the back half of the bunker beyond the kitchen into some rarely used storage rooms where another doorway led a person outside. Maybe he sensed the multitude of angels inside at that moment and he wanted to avoid them like the cockroach he was fleeing from the light.

Sam threw open the door without giving Crowley a moment to react. He grabbed the little demon king by the lapels of his overcoat and threw him against the outside bunker wall. It worked, he thought absently, and he didn’t get flicked into the nearest tree by demon strength, which meant he really must have taken the guy by surprise.

“Where the hell did they take my niece?” Sam roared inches from Crowley’s face. “Where is she, you piece of shit?”

A dramatic sigh escaped Crowley and he rolled his eyes like he didn’t have a care in the world. “Moose, Moose, Moose. I can’t tell you how much I missed your emotional barbarism. Let me go before I get angry.” The deposed King of Hell patted Sam’s fists still gripping his overcoat.

“You better have some goddamn answers,” Sam growled.

“My enemy of my enemy is my friend,” tittered Crowley through a bearded smile. “Put me down, Moose. I come bearing gifts.”


End file.
